Guardians of Solas: Raid on the Holy Capital

Chapter 10: Reason to Live

Aram

After Eva closed the hole in my chest, I immediately turned to her. "You're afraid of blood?!"

Eva frowned and bowed her head. "Y-yes s-sir..."

"Then why would you become a..." The look of despair on Eva's face and the glare from Sandra was enough to tell me that it was not something to be discussed, not then, and maybe not ever.

The room was silent. Eva looked upset, Sandra looked like she wanted to strangle me, Liz was admiring Sandra's angry side, making comments like "she's so cool" and such, and Taylor just leaned on the wall looking at the ground. Finally, the silence was broken when Kaines and Alesha came in laughing and joking. I smiled at the sight of it, because that kind of behavior isn't usually accepted during war, but is healthy for morale.

Kaines was bent over in front of Alesha holding his stomach. Then all the sudden they stopped and looked up at the silent room they just waltzed into. Kaines looked left and right with his usual confused look on his face. "Are we interrupting something," Kaines asked.

No one said anything so I smiled and spoke up, "Not at all. Kaines, Alesha, please come in." Kaines sat down by a chair by the door and Alesha walked over to me and sat down on the floor next to me.

Alesha brought her mouth to my ear and whispered, "Are you..." I turned and she stared at me with worried eyes.

I smiled to reassure her. "Yeah, I'll be fine, don't worry about me."

She squeezed my hand. "I-I'm sorry, I just wouldn't know-"

I cut her off. I knew what she was going to say. "We'll talk tonight, I still have something I need to tell you anyway. Here's not the time, Taylor needs to tell us what's going on, remember?" She kept her eyes on for a moment, then nodded. We turned to Taylor.

Taylor stepped off the wall and cleared her throat. "Alright, before that three day interruption, where were we? Ah yes, we were going over the operation. Well as I said, the Army of Solas is going to attack near the city to try and draw away as many defenders as they can. While that is going on, all the Sentinels we can muster will go on rafts and attack the defenders in control of the Holy Capital. We know the beach has many defenses so the vanguard will be the Knights followed by the Warriors. The Archers and Mages will do what they can, but in the end the Knights and Warriors will have to make their way up the beach and take the defenses. After that we will head straight for the Holy Throne. After the throne has been secured some of our forces will double back and flank the defenders that battle the Army and the capital will be ours again!" She raised her fist in the air and gave a cheer, which no one really responded to except Kaines and Liz. I didn't have the energy after that heal, Eva was recovering from what she had just had to do, Sandra was still glaring at me, and Alesha still looked at me with a troubled look. Yup, we were quite the well-rounded team to say the least.

After the talk was over, everyone milled about for a little while, chatting and trying to cheer Eva up, but nothing was working. Eventually she became so flustered she rushed off upset, so Sandra and Kaines chased after her; although Sandra did what she could to push the kid away but he wouldn't budge. Taylor discussed what we would do about my allies and we agreed that our group would be in a raft together as a unit on standby.

Soon, the sun began to fall and Taylor waved her hand. "Alright kiddos, you get to your business, I'll be seeing you." She headed to the door and stopped. "Oh and Aram..."

Taylor turned around and gave me a look I hadn't seen for some time.

"Keep all of them safe okay? They're a good bunch but need someone to guide and protect them."