The One-Armed Adventurer

I was bedridden for days more, occasionally waking up and speaking with my visitors but never being conscious for long. Nursemaids came and changed my bandages, cleaning the wound for healers to come and tend to it. By the time they had finished, the bloody wound that showed the severed end of my bone and churned muscles was covered by a fresh layer of flesh. It was hardened like the sole of my feet and when I prodded it, it was almost numb, but the pain had mostly subsided.

It was still difficult to cope with the loss of a limb, every time I looked at where my arm had once been I was reminded yet again of the irrevocable loss I had suffered. It wasn’t just the lack of feeling that was strange, nor my inability to perform tasks I had once found simple. When I regained the strength to leave my bed and walk across the room, I struggled to keep my balance.

The first time I tried to walk across the room, I ended up falling over, the distribution of weight in my body completely changed. In time, I managed to figure out how to walk without falling. Still though, more often than not I was stumbling to the left.

On the fourth day of my recovery, I decided that I had had enough. I could walk well enough, it was by no means perfect, but I knew that I would get better in time. I didn’t need to be an athlete, I just had to reach the shadow gates.

I left my bed chamber and roamed the halls of the fortress, dressed in my pants and a bandage across my chest that covered my stump. I received a few uneasy glances from the guards, I supposed no one wanted to be reminded of what could happen to them if something went wrong. In the end I got lost again and had to find a servant to take me to the members of my party.

They were all surprised to see me when I walked through the door, all except Aladra that is. She wore the same expressionless look as always and only glanced in my direction momentarily when I entered. “Aucus” Sara exclaimed, leaping up to hold onto me like I was some sort of feeble old man. “What are you doing out of bed, are you okay?”

“I’m fine” I said as I extricated myself from her grasp, she still gave me a concerned look, as though I could fall apart at any second. “We need to leave for the shadow gates, we can’t wait any longer. Goddesses only know what the other parties are doing there”

Sara and Cleo both frowned at me as though I was mad, “I know you said you still wanted to go, but…” Cleo started to say.

I cut her off, “No, we’re not waiting any longer. I’m not going to get any better from more days in bed, we’re going to the shadow gates”

They both looked like they wanted to object but Aladra rose from her seat first, “Okay, get dressed. I don’t think you want to face devils like that” she jabbed a finger into my bare chest to drive home her point.

I looked around the room and found the chest that my clothes were in, pulling out a shirt with one hand and struggling to put it on. “Can you help” I said, standing with my arm and head within the shirt but neither going into the right hole.

Korin chuckled at the sight of me, “Ay lad, you look stumped there” he said, chuckling to himself again. I heard a smacking sound as Cleo hit him in the back of his head and the laughter was replaced by grumbling.

I felt hands on me, and my shirt was pulled down over my head with my arm going through its hole. I looked at Aladra standing in front of me as she adjusted my clothing. Her hands grabbed the flapping sleeve of my right arm and folded it up so that it wouldn’t be in my way, “I need a pin” she held out her hand towards the girls.

Sara pulled a green tipped pin from her hair, loosening her blonde locks and held it out for Aladra to take. She stuffed the pin into the sleeve, holding the folds in position for me. “Thank you” I said, unable to hold back the humiliation I felt at being unable to dress myself.

She just nodded her head and picked up my armour, fastening it to my body, something that I wouldn’t have even been able to struggle through. My sword was fastened to my left side, though I didn’t think that I would draw it. I was trained for fighting with my right arm, using a sword in my left would in all likelihood prove to be more of a liability than an asset. I would have to stick with using my abilities until I could get some practice in.

“Are you ready?” I asked, looking at the others who had all donned their own armour and grabbed their weapons.

“Aye, don’t worry lad. We’ll take good care of ya” Korin said, patting the head of his axe at his waist.

For once we managed to find our way through the maze of hallways and doors in the fortress and exited, heading to the stables. We claimed our mounts from the stable hands, but when it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to ride by myself either, I was helped onto the back of Aladra’s horse. She was the most experienced rider out of us and had rode with passengers before.

We started walking the horses out of the fortress gates and then through the city, exiting once more through the portcullises. I bounced up and down, wobbling from side to side as I did all I could to hold onto Aladra.

We followed the road eastwards, the fields of crops drying up and being replaced with rolling plains of grass as there became fewer and fewer settlements past Karatir. The road became vaguer as we travelled more and more to the east, where it was once a clear trodden road made of dirt elevated above the surface, it soon became marked by flattened grass.

We travelled all through the day and rested at night with the others helping me off the horse and hunting down a hare for us to eat. We woke again the next day and finished our journey to the shadow gates by midday, the road having disappeared completely by then.

The shadow gates were colossal things, even taller than the spires of Alynthir and more ancient than the walls of Karatir. They were built into the surface of the tallest tree I had ever seen, reaching upwards and piercing the clouds as the branches shadowed all beneath it. The gates themselves were made of a shining black stone, like nothing I had ever seen before. On one half of the frame was the visage of an ancient king from the time of the thousand wars, King Helm if the histories were correct. His hand was reaching upwards in an arc and meeting the fingertip of the other figure, a three headed woman, one head facing Helm, the other facing outwards, and the last facing away from the gates. The doors of the gate were made of the same black stone and were cracked open in a horrifying display, beyond the opening was a darkness even deeper and more encapsulating than that of the stone.

On the field around the gates was a display of arms like nothing I had seen before. Trenches were dug with vicious spike thrusted into the earth, facing the gates. Ballistae and catapults were constructed in the distance, all aimed at the gates as they prepared for an ****. Even further beyond were a mass of tents and pavilions where the ordinary soldiers were camped and training, all unaware of what they were preparing to face but none without their suspicions.

Other adventurers that hadn’t been a part of the contract bestowed by the Queen were also at the encampment, patrolling the grounds and ready for any escaped devils. Our horses trotted over the fields of grass, long since trampled by the army before us. We made our way towards the camp and had our horses taken by a camp follower who escorted them to a makeshift stable as we dismounted.

I tried my best to walk on my own but had to resort to holding onto Aladra’s arm to keep my balance whilst we headed for the command tent. As the flap was pulled open for us, we were greeted by the sight of the other adventurers who had been with us in Karatir.

They all looked surprised to see us as we entered and I released Aladra’s arm, trying to maintain a semblance of dignity. Zarin frowned at me, then his mouth twitched into a smile as he looked at my arm, or lack thereof. I saw Elsie looking at me as well, her brow furrowed in annoyance that I hadn’t followed her instructions.as my gaze continued moving around the table, I saw Kira. She had a black eye and a bruise on her cheek, her lip split as though she had been on the losing side of a tavern brawl. Zarin.

“Why are you still here?” I asked before they could talk, stopping Nallis in her tracks as she rose to her feet. “I thought you left days ago, haven’t you gone through the gates yet?”

Nallis looked back at the rest of her party and pursed her lips, “We tried going through when we arrived. It didn’t take”

“What do you mean?” Aladra asked her, her finger rubbing over the pearl ring that had a faint glow as she glanced at Nallis.

The other woman frowned at Aladra before speaking, “One of us crossed through the gates the day we arrived here. He was in there for seconds before he came out, he was dead, his body cold” she shook her head. “We’ve been trying to figure out a way to go through, seeing what else could be done from outside”

“And, what have ya got then?” Korin asked, pulling out a chair and taking a seat with a loud sigh.

Nallis shook her head, “Nothing, we don’t know how we’re going to do it. If we can’t survive in the gates… we just don’t know”

A few more voices sounded from the table as other adventurers spoke over her, apparently trying to gain support again for other plans that they had had. Some wanted to start a full **** into the gates, others wanted to try sending the soldiers in until one survived, others still wished to send their spirits into the gates. There was a raucous as they raised their ideas again and were derided by their fellow adventurers, each trying to be the loudest.

It was an absurd sight. They were here to seal the gates and end the threat of devils to the world, instead they were squabbling like children. If the threat wasn’t so great it would be humorous. I ran my gaze over them all, some of them like Zarin sat with arms crossed as he frowned at me, not taking part in the argument.

I almost laughed before I spoke, the words that came out were an amazement even to myself. “I’ll go through”