Awaken His Eyes | The Awakened Book One

Chapter 6

The other soldier wasted no time and attacked immediately. Lunging forward, he swung his sword at gut level with a backhanded slash.

Adair backstepped the passing blade and drove the point of his sword into the man's chest.

The soldier dropped immediately to his knees.

Adair wrenched the blade out, spinning around to find the other man still on his hands and knees. Before the soldier could get to his feet, Adair drove his sword between the man's shoulder blades and the man collapsed on the floor.

Adair's head was spinning, but he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the growing nausea. Darting back to the corner of the hallway, he laid in wait for the guard who was sure to have heard all the commotion.

Mere seconds elapsed before the guard came running around the corner.

Adair swung his sword in a level arc and caught the soldier in the face, stopping his upper body momentum while his legs continued forward and swung out from underneath him.

~

Adair dragged the bodies into one of the nearby cells and piled two of them in the corner. He stripped the clothes off the third man and changed into them, using his own to wipe up the mess in the hallway. His head was still spinning a little, but he was feeling better with every breath. The guard had been armed with a spear, but Adair decided to keep his newly acquired sword instead, to complete his disguise. The attire of these soldiers was much different from his own military dress, with leather sandals that crisscrossed up his lower leg, coming almost to his knee. The guard's tunic had long sleeves and only reached down to Adair's waist, where a pair of calf-long trousers completed the uniform. The sword was similar to standard Orudan issue but a few inches longer and slightly narrower.

Who are these people?

Everything about them seemed relatively normal. There was nothing foreign or outlandish except their secretive presence on the ocean. They weren't part of any group that he knew of, but their skin and features suggested they were from this part of the world.

Does the emperor know about them?

As soon as the thought came to him, he dismissed it. The Empire was the most advanced military in the world, and they owed that to two reasons—organization and communication. If the emperor had any operations so near to Bastul, or even knew of something, Adair would be the first one notified. For the meantime, Adair brushed the thoughts aside and concentrated on finding a way out of this place.

Disguised as one of the enemy, he strode confidently down the hallway, turning to the right and heading in the direction from which he had been dragged. As he walked, he tried to take note of any details that might later prove useful. Flames burned in sconces at eye level along both walls, dimly lighting the hallway. The floor was made of a smooth black marble, highly polished, and it reflected what light the torches cast. The walls were made of a more ordinary stone, duller than the floor, but still black. Adair couldn't find any seams where the stones were joined together. It was as if the whole hallway had been carved out of one giant rock.

He found the place where the guard had stood only a moment ago—a low archway at the end of the hall that opened into a wider and taller area with doorways on the left and right. Another low archway was set into the wall on the opposite side, making this chamber a four-way junction. Adair tried to remember from which direction he had been dragged, but couldn't recall turning around any corners. Then again, he had only just regained consciousness at this point. He decided to go with his instinct and chose the archway across the chamber. It was a hallway, exactly like the one he just left. As he walked, it occurred to him that he must be somewhere inside the walled structure he saw on the ocean.