Birthday Present for ivy

The sun bears down onto the dark green grass of the nearby hillside. The fertile ground having just the right amount of nutrients to support the lush foliage and offer a meal to the local wild life. A female lightly steps along the ground being careful not to disturb the beauty of the land. Her softly padded shoes barely disturb the blades of grass as she lightly steps through the field.

The wind picks up and rustles through the hillsides of Ireland, the female’s destination just over the crest of the hill. An old castle raises into view as she crests the hill. She quietly walks up to the open archway before finally ducking through making her way to the center courtyard.

“Anyone home?” the female calls out. No one answered, not even the any of the servants. She giggles and smiles mischievously. “Looks like I have the castle all to myself today.” She quickly makes her way to her room and kicks off her shoes by the door. She sits down on her bed and reclines back. Her imagination starts to drift and she starts to daydream.

“Rei, are you here?” Another voice calls out, Rei’s mother, snapping Rei out of her daydream. She lets out a sigh and slowly gets up from the bed.

“Yeah, I’m in my room.” Rei replies back as she slowly gets up and exits her room. She wonders if she will have to resume her duties again while she walks to her mother’s voice. Rei sighs again as she locates her mother in the central hallway. Rei’s mother is flanked with a small servant girl, which is carrying her coat.

“There you are dear. Do you know if your father is back home yet?” Rei’s mother ask while she walks along the hallway toward the kitchen to direct the cooks what to prepare for the day.

“I haven’t seen anyone today.” Rei replies following her mother into the kitchen. Rei grabs an apple from the counter and starts to nibble on it while her mother gave directions for them to prepare the day’s meal. The cooks scramble at once and start working on the requested items when Rei’s mother turns back to her.

“Maybe your father is out with your brother somewhere. Could you be a dear and see if you can find them for me? Last I heard your father was going into town to visit with a few of the lords around these parts to secure a few business ties.” Rei’s mother explains worried that her husband hasn’t made it back yet.

Rei let out another sigh. “I guess I can go. You shouldn’t worry though if my brother is with father, there shouldn’t be any issues.” Rei says goodbye to her mother and heads out to town. Rei feels like there is no need for alarm as her father has been late home before and there were no unusual incidents then.

After the long walk to town she stops short of the entrance. No guards were at the gate and the town seemed eerily quiet. She crouches low and carefully walks towards the gate. She does her best to try to imitate her brother and remember his teachings about being stealthy. She carefully controls her breathing as she listens carefully. No sounds of movement or talking can be heard.

Rei slides along close to the wall and carefully peers around the corner of the gate. The entrance to town was deserted and not a single person could be found. Rei starts to get extremely nervous the further she travels in the city. Everything looks as it should, neither signs of battle nor any signs of blood.

“This isn’t right…. Something happened here. Where are all the villagers at?” Rei thinks as she travels along. She stop short as the ground near her suddenly exploded into a shower of fragments. She instinctively rolls out of the way effectively avoiding the shrapnel from the cobblestone. Before she could react everything suddenly when dark after someone hit her in the back of the head from behind.

* * *

Rei slowly opens her eyes feeling a pounding headache that causes her vision to blur and she almost passes out again. Once her vision clears she notices she is in a dark room and her arms are bound behind her back. She pulls against her bonds but they refuse to budge. She curses and struggles again.

Suddenly a male voice shouts from outside. “Quiet in there before I knock you out again!”

Rei lets out a small grunt in response. Her anger starting to grow and she fights against the binds harder now. They refuse to break and she lets out a resigned sigh. When Rei finally calmed down she realized her legs are not bound at all. She carefully stands up carefully. Her eyes finally adjust to the darkness and she finds herself in a store room.

Rei walks over to a sharper corner of a crate and she starts rubbing her bindings along the corner. After a few minutes the binds start breaking and soon her arms are free. Rei rubs her sore wrists while she looks around the store room looking for something she could use as a weapon.

Rei carefully pries the lid off of one of the crates and uncovers a variety of swords with various Celtic designs. She pulls out a smaller dagger that similar to design as her brother. She finds a matching dagger and straps them to her sides. She also grabs a longer but thin sword as well and straps it to her back.

After Rei equips herself, she then moves to the middle of the store room and starts making as much noise a she can. She knocks over anything she can and starts yelling loudly. She dashes over by the door and closes her eye for a moment to protect her eyes from the sudden light that may come in through the door. She presses tightly against the wall as the door swings open. Once the initial flash of light hits her closed eyes she slowly opens them when she feels someone rush past her. She notices the moron guarding her left the key in the door. She doesn’t hesitate and ducks out he door slamming it shut and locking it behind her.

The guard realizes what has happened and bangs on door. Rei pockets the key and starts running through town looking for any clues as to what happened. She begins to worry what’s happened to her father and brother, including the rest of the town folk.

Rei arrives at the market in the center of town. All the vendors are empty and most of the stalls are damaged. Now she starts to panic knowing something happened, she wonders if this means her nation is going to war.

Rei closes her eyes for a moment and then dashes off towards town-hall, hoping to find some more information or maybe find someone else in this town. As she approaches she skids to a stop, noticing two people standing infront of the double door of town hall with swords at their side. The doors are closed and barricaded and Rei can hear the cries and whimpers of people inside the building.

Rei rushes forward but a hand suddenly grabs her and pulls her back. At the same time another hand goes over her mouth preventing her from making any noise. “Shh, quiet now or they’ll know we are here.” A familiar and hushed voice reaches her ears. Rei stops struggling and slowly turns around to face her brother.

Rei lowers her voice as she speaks to her brother. “What happened….. Is… Father ok?”

Her brother nods. “Yes he’s fine, but these thugs have everyone from town lock inside town hall. I was barely able to slip out but I don’t know how many there are.”

Rei shakes her head. “I don’t know either but as soon as I got into town someone knocked me over the back of the head.* Rei balls her hands into fists as her anger starts to grow again.

Her brother places his hand on her shoulder and she looks up. “We have to be careful here. There are only the two guards at the door, but there’s no telling if there are more around. We have to deal with those guards quietly. I… know you may not like the idea but… you’re going to have to kill one of those guards.”

“No, after what they did to this town… they need to pay, Hakuzo.” Rei replies to her brother.

Hakuzo takes a breath and nods. “Ok then… Use the small blades and aim for vitals. The quickest way to dispatch those two quietly is by slitting their throats. We’d both have to strike at the same time. Hopefully we won’t draw attention of the other guards.”

Rei nods and Hakuzo leads her back behind building while listening carefully. They move close to a home being sure to duck under the window and keep moving quietly. They slowly make their way behind the town hall. Hakuzo directs Rei to hug the building and move around the opposite side.

Hakuzo quickly and quietly moves around the wall until he reaches the corner. From there he carefully peaks around the corner. Once he is sure the guards don’t see him he waits for Rei to appear around the corner. Once he sees her, He motions for her to wait.

Rei stops as soon a she see’s her brother’s warning and waits. A few moments later Hakuzo throws a Rock over the building and it lands a between an alleyway with a loud clunk. Both the guards draw their swords and move towards the sound to investigate. Hakuzo starts moving swiftly to catch up with the guards as Rei does the same.

Within moments Hakuzo is behind one of the guards and dispatches him without the other guard noticing. Rei attempts to do the same on the other guard, but she wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the guard. The failed attempt resulted in her being thrown to the ground.

Hakuzo reacts quickly dropping the guard he killed and slams into the guard. Hakuzo slashes at the guard with his knife but the guard recovered quickly and was on his feet already.

Rei rushes forward and stabs the guard in the side, striking his kidney. The guard groans out and Hakuzo delivers a sharp kick to the guards face causing him to crumple to the ground.

Hakuzo nods after trying to catch his breath. Both Hakuzo and Rei unbar the door and open it. Most of the towns folk are inside and quickly Hakuzo asks if there are other guards inside. One of the people nods weakly say there are no other guards in side. Hakuzo looks around and notices his father or the other wealthy land-lords are here.

“Does anyone know where they are keeping the land lords are being kept at?”  Hakuzo asks but no one had an answer. He sighs out, “we have get these people to safety then we have to find father and the others….”

* * *

After Hakuzo and Rei help the townsfolk back to their castle, the two start looking around for their father. The town was empty still and no other guards were around. “They have to be somewhere else. They won’t be harmed because they have wealth…” Hakuzo explains while they look around. “We need answers.”

Rei pulls out the store room key from her pocket. “One of those thugs had me locked in a store room. I got out and locked him in there. Though, there’s some weapons in there he could get a hold of.”

“I see, Time to question this joker.” Her brother replies while Rei leads them to the store room. Once there, Hakuzo has Rei block the door while he prepares to enter. He carefully listens behind the door. He doesn’t hear any movement, but he carefully slides the key inside the door and carefully unlocks it, and removing the key again.

When the door swung open the guard was sleeping on the ground. Rei thinks to herself, “Moron.” Hakuzo takes no time and quickly ties up the sleeping man. The man continued to sleep even after being tied up. Rei growls and walks forward and kicks the man. That was enough to get him to wake up and start thrashing about.

Hakuzo places his boot against the man and presses him back. “You have just one chance to tell us where they took the land lords!” Hakuzo commands pressing harder into the guy.

“Wrrr…. They were taken to a small cabin just north of town. But you won’t make it to them, there’s traps set all over.” the guy replies. Rei walks up to him and kicks him hard in the crotch, causing the guy to curl up in pain.

“Let’s go… we need to save father.” Rei states as she walks out of the store room. Hakuzo turns and leaves as well. Both heading north of town to find their father.

* * *

North of town leads into a heavily wooded area. Hakuzo takes the lead having traveled through this area many times. He keeps his eyes sharp and carefully listens for any stray sounds. Since the guard so kindly warned them that there were traps along the way, Rei stayed close to her brother as the traversed further on.

Once they were a good distance down the road, they left the path and carefully traversed the woods to make it harder to spot. Luckily night starts to fall making their approach well hidden.

An hour passes and both arrive near the cabin. Guards patrol the main road though Hakuzo and Rei easily avoid detection as they continue on. So far they haven’t spot any traps and wonder how much the guard was lying.

Both move in close to the cabin keeping out of sight while they eavesdrop in. Inside they could hear the talk of guards downstairs and the hushed voices of others from higher up. Soon Rei recognizes one of them as their father and nods. Hakuzo nods as well carefully thinking of a plan. There was no visible entrance from the outside of the cabin to the top floor; there was no other choice but to go inside to save them.

Before Hakuzo could react Rei rushes to the door and throws it open. The door bangs loudly against the wall as Rei yells, “Where’s my father? You will return him to me at once!”

Hakuzo quickly ducks in behind Rei, with his sword already drawn. The guards quickly scramble to action. Hakuzo dashes forward and dispatches a guard before he could react, the remaining for split off, two attacking Hakuzo while the other two take on Rei.

Rei quickly ducks under an attack and manages to trip up one of the guards in the process. She quickly stabs the guard through the heart while the other one tries swinging at her. She leaves the small dagger in place while she draws her own sword. Sparks fly form the swords as they clash. Rei’s stays focused on her enemy, unable to keep up with what Hakuzo is doing. Before Rei could react, Hakuzo quickly kills the guard.

“How… are you that fast?” Rei asks.

Hakuzo sighs. “Sadly… too much practice. I’ve had to learn how to fight just to keep ruffians like this from causing issues. Enough on that we need to get the land-lords to safety.” Rei nods and the go and quickly rescue they land lords. Most of them afraid to hold a sword let alone know how to use one. The two’s father takes up a sword from the fallen guard and the make a dash out of the cabin. Hakuzo and his father quickly take out any guards they encounter on the way down the path. Within an hour they gathered everyone in their castle to discuss what happened.

“How did you guys get captured?” Rei asks her father.

“The thugs came into town with at least twenty men. From there they over took the town folk and locked them in town hall. After they did that we were taken to the cabin so they could try to extort out money from us. Their leaders left someplace to discuss further plans. The village is still in danger and it’s very possible so is our castle.”

“Then we fight. We can’t let them do this to our town. If we have to we will rally anyone that can fight to push back against this threat!” Rei announces in response, her anger still apparent at these thugs.

“I’m afraid you are right Rei. If we don’t fight, they will over run this city and our home.” Her father replies.

From that moment on they all prepared for the war to come.