Symphonic Odyssey
: Vol. Two: Beneath the Hawthorn Tree: Verse Ninety-Five

The blast had been quite a large one, and it shook the entire gorge which dislodged more of the same boulders that had blocked their escape route earlier. As the giant stones began to fall, one of Glenda’s opponents was crushed beneath one, while the other closed in on her and pushed her back against the boulders at the entrance, Alvin was also pushed back by his two opponents and the two stared desperately at Cypher through the cascade of falling stones.

“Cypher go and replace a safe place to hide! We’ll finish this as quickly as we can!” Alvin shouted, deflecting the hooded Conductor’s hammer by violently sweeping his robes in its path. A large bounder crashed down just in front of Cypher and he dashed back, sheathing his sword, and fell backward.

He quickly scrabbled to his feet and dashed away from the entrance to the gorge. He broke into a full sprint as the entire area began crashing down around him, stumbling a bit each time a boulder slammed down around him.

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Turning back the clock to just after the entrance had been closed off, the members of Silent Night had detected the hidden Conductors up ahead preparing their ambush and had tried to close the gap between themselves and Alvin’s group. Their leader, Ulric, had arrived first and upon seeing the collapse, began issuing orders to his subordinates.

“Mells, Victoria! You two head around the left side and see if you can make your way around and replace a route inside,” he shouted pointing to a pair of women who nodded and immediately dashed off at high speed. “Tate and Burke, you guys stay here and see if you can clear away enough of this rubble. Alvin and Glenda might need your help, I’m pretty sure they’re fighting peak rank-three Conductors! Don’t worry about saving your strength, the four of you should be able to handle them!”

“I’ll head around the right side and see if I can replace a way in myself!” At that, he took off without even a second thought. He trusted his subordinates and knew they’d carry out their orders without fail. This entire attack had caught him and the other members of Silent Night off guard.

Despite their vigilance and caution, they had failed to catch this obvious ambush before his team could do anything about it. The circumstances of this attack were quite strange indeed when he thought about it. He had even sent three members of his team to scout ahead of Alvin’s group. That they hadn’t reported anything or returned worried him greatly, and if he was being honest, they were probably dead.

A bitter taste entered his mouth at that thought, but he kept running as fast as he could. Something about this situation didn’t sit right with him. Alvin and Glenda were strong, and these attackers must have known at least that much. Yet, they had only sent twelve Conductors to face them alongside a Golem as far as he could tell after he had sensed the area after arriving.

Given the report about the boy, he was sure that he could handle the golem but the twelve Conductors, while posing a significant danger, wouldn’t be impossible for the two professors to fight off. If their aim was to capture the boy, then this was quite a pitiful attempt so there had to be more to it than just that.

Sequinnen had trusted him with protecting Cypher personally and he would do everything he could to live up to that trust. A feeling of dread entered his mind then, and he redoubled his efforts, expending more energy as he dashed along the side of the gorge as fast as his legs could carry him. With a powerful jump, he leaped forward and disappeared into the trees.

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Cypher ran quickly through the gorge and managed to avoid all of the hazards that crossed his path. He hadn’t expected the Golem to explode so violently, or at all for that matter. But because of it, he was forced to leave his teachers behind and run to safety. As powerful as the two of them were, these boulders weighed enough and were falling from high enough to kill even them.

Still, he rushed forward and after a moment cleared the exit to the gorge. He looked back to see nothing but a cloud of dust rising from all the impacts and sighed as he finally escaped the danger.

As he turned to stop though, he let out a scream and dug his heels into the terrain. In front of him was a somewhat steep dropoff, and before he could stop his forward momentum, he shot over the side and fell screaming into a cluster of trees.

As he fell, he reached out for any branches that came within reach but only managed to scrape and bruise his hands as he grasped in vain. He banged against several trunks and dislocated his shoulder as he finally managed to grab hold of something sturdy.

His body came to a sudden halt and the pain in his shoulder caused him to lose his grip. He tumbled to the ground and landed with a hard, ‘THUD’ which pushed the air out of his body all at once and he gasped in shock.

When he finally caught his breath, he looked up and saw that he must have fallen about a hundred meters, and with an exasperated sigh, chuckled at the fact that he had somehow survived. He stood up, his arm hanging limp at his side, and moved to a nearby tree.

What he was about to do would hurt like hell, but in his mind, he was still in danger and this was necessary. Using his good hand, he placed the dislocated limb against the tree and took a deep breath. With a twist and a hard jerk forward, he popped the joint back into its socket and let out a restrained howl of pain that caused his vision to flicker momentarily.

After he had finished, he rubbed the shoulder softly and looked around. He had no idea where he was but he couldn’t be too far from the trail. As it was, however, he was hidden from the view of anyone who might have seen him fall and so he moved deeper into the shade of the trees and found a thick trunk to sit under.

His Zight had been completely expended in the last battle and right now the best thing he could do was restore some of it. He connected with his Ark and began to refill his reserves. Here in the forest, the concentration of Zight was much thicker than at the peak of the mountain and so after only around thirty minutes, he had restored a little over half of his Zight.

Cypher stood up, put his pack back on, and started towards the base of the cliff he had fallen from to try and replace a way back up to where Alvin and Glenda were. The rocks were bound to have finished collapsing by now and he was worried about them.

However, before he could take more than a few steps that ominous feeling from before prickled at the back of his mind, and those dark melodies returned. He quickly ran forward and hid behind a nearby tree, and another explosion went off behind him.

“Not just once, but twice now you’ve managed to avoid my spells,” came a gruff voice from some distance away, and Cypher peeked around the trunk of the tree to get a better look.

“That’s quite interesting, no wonder we were sent to capture you. You have quite a lot of potential,” The voice had come from a man with a black beard and a jagged scar running down the side of his face, and he stood with his hands on his hips only a few dozen feet away from Cypher.

“It took me a while to replace out where you went you know, I was starting to think that maybe you’d gotten away, but lucky for me I happened to spot you as I was heading back to the ambush site. You did a good job fighting against my golem, but playtime is over.

“You now have two options, we can do this the easy way, which of course, is the one where you get to keep your limbs—” he said, holding up a finger to illustrate his point, “—or we can do this the fun way. Personally, I don’t care which one you choose, either way, you’re coming with me,” Cypher dashed out from behind the tree and took off into the woods as fast as he could. There was no way he could kill this man in his current state, he was a Rank-three Conductor!

An evil smile spread across the man’s face, and as he started to chase after Cypher, he yelled, “Excellent choice! The fun way it is then!”