A Song of Silence

Chapter 29: A Basilisk in the Dark

PSA: I will be posting one chapter every upload day until next Saturday. After next Saturday, the double chapter postings will be resumed.

I give Azazel a glaring look. Basilisks are impossible to defeat unless you summon some of their mortal enemy, weasels, to chase them away. They are beasts of venom and vicious strikes. It is nearly impossible to kill one and how to kill them is basically unknown. The only ones who would know such things are likely dead being killed by basilisks that they thought to defeat with their knowledge. Azazel gives me a victorious look in response. Ah, I see what he's done. If nobody completes the challenge, then they will lose and no winner for the contests will be declared. The frivolous pageantry of his mother trying to find him a wife will not be at an end without the High King directly sending them away.

The High Queen realizes this as well, for a scowl immediately forms on her face as she glares at her son. She can't stop the challenge because it will be an insult to the other provinces that the fae come from. Nobody will want to back out of the challenge for the slim chance that they might be able to kill the beast. Fools, the lot of them. They will all die if they don't put their prides aside and run as fast and as far away as they can. They do no such thing, of course, instead most size up the basilisk and ready themselves for a fight.

Glass shatters behind me and shrieks from the nobility make me whirl around. Soldiers. Istlean-soldiers again. Not even a week after their first attack they do so again. Azazel had chosen not to ask Lady Rosaline about the attacking soldiers, wanting to send spies to the Istlean Ruins first. Seeing Azazel attack the soldiers with such anger, I was sure the peaceful way to resolve the soldiers had now gone out the window. I ushered the nobles and the High Queen out of the auditorium while Azazel kept the soldiers occupied. His power encircled and lashed out at them as the contestants attacked the basilisk, oblivious of the battle that occurred above.

I grab the knife hidden under my dress and charge at the soldiers. The faster Azazel and I get rid of them, the sooner we can deal with the basilisk problem below. All the soldiers are too occupied with Azazel to notice me creeping up behind them. I slit the throat of the soldier closest to me in a quick motion and move on to the next. "Fuck!" One screams as he notices his lifeless comrade. A few turn away from Azazel as they see me as more of a threat than him. I give them a wicked smile and get to work. Their armor is stiff and doesn't enable them to move as much as I. That doesn't mean my shirts done encumber me, but I have more movement than the soldiers. One swipes at me with a fist of ice, he gets a knife in the eye. The rest smarten up and realize they'll live a little longer if they don't use their abilities.

Their magic disappears from there. They attempt to hold their ground, but against the onslaught of Azazel and I, they don't stand a chance. We finally back the final few into a corner. The terrified cries of the contestants below finally reach my ears. Shrieks and pleading emanate from below. Without thinking, I rush to the glass wall to observe the fighting down below. At this point, it's more like cowering than fighting. Everybody but Karasi basically cowers as they try to get away from the raging basilisk. Brynn tried to hold her ground a few paces behind Karasi but doesn't succeed for long. The basilisk spits its venom and every time it does, the cowering contestants scream. It relishes their fear and is playing with them right now before it kills them.

"Aerilynn!" Azazel screams behind me. I turn to him in alarm, but only can see his shocked expression as a soldier barrels into me and pushes the both of us through the glass wall. Time freezes for s moment as I size up my predicament. This moron did not just push me through a window, did he? Yeah, he did. And now he is going to die. My knife stabbed him directly in the neck. He didn't even squeak as he died. Now to deal with my falling situation.

I had fallen from far higher places, but I didn't have a dead body and wasn't wearing a dress. Rolling out of my fall to soften the impact would be virtually impossible with the dress on and I did not have time to strip naked in the middle of the air. I could use the soldier to soften my fall. No, his armor would most likely cause me to break a bone and I needed to be in my best fighting condition when facing the basilisk. Left with few other options to break my fall, I was resigned to my fate of trying to break my fall with this stupid dress tangling my legs. Great. I pushed the now dead body away from me and prepared myself for a world of pain.