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	Chapter 7 - The Plans
	In room 6 on the 13th floor of the building known by the locals as ‘The Midnight Tower’, a table sat in the middle of a room. Around this table were 8 seats, on each seat was a person, and at the head of the table stood a ninth man. He was in his thirties and he was well built, wearing a formal suit which would not have fitted his appearance normally, but he commanded the presence of a successful man and this made him look more than appropriate wearing it. He had a handsome face, except for his eyes. A normal person would look into his eyes and see nothing, no emotion, no feeling, no soul. The people he was addressing now, however, knew better. They looked into his eyes and saw fear, they saw hate. When they looked into his eyes, they saw the eyes of their true master, the eyes of Rahn. “Greetings.” His voice sounded as it was not his own. It sounded ancient and at the same time it sounded foreign, but it was powerful and definitive, so the people he was addressing had no choice but to listen. “As you are no doubt aware, the reason we are meeting here is that they are nearly fully assembled. The two who were to join last week have made it successfully. I am not pleased, why were they not executed?” The reply came from a woman who kept a calm head and spoke firmly. “Our agents were unable to stop them Master Rahn. You knew they would fail and so did we. We lost two of our strongest men in a fight we knew we’d lose, however we did manage to apprehend the boy’s Father and believe he will be of some use to us.” “I knew the attack was futile!” He shouted, as if it should have been obvious “However” He paused to look straight into the woman’s eyes, and she wished she hadn’t spoke. The pure hatred that looked back at her sent a shock through her whole body, and she froze up. She knew she couldn’t move until he looked away, until their eyesight was broken, and oh, how badly she hoped that it would happen sooner. It seemed like forever that he was looking at her, and she felt as if he was pulling her very life out from through her eyes. For a moment, she though she felt her heart stop, but then it pumped again, slowly enough to keep her alive, but she still felt strains running all along her veins and arteries. It took all her concentration to remember to breathe, but Rahn demanded her concentration. The look in his eyes drew her mind away, and she wished again that he’d break the stare. When his stare finally moved away, she fell forward onto the table, gasping with breath, fighting to bring oxygen into the lungs which had seemed to have seized up, and forgotten temporarily how to work. Her heart sped to it normal speed, but on the way, the blood felt like it was cutting into her insides. Then finally, she felt normal again, free to look where she wished, and free breathe, and to pump blood around her body. Rahn spoke again, more to the rest of the people around the table than to the woman who’d spoke against him. “I also knew some good would come from it.” He held his long-fingered hand out towards the woman, as if putting her on show, demonstrating what awaited anyone else. “You will not resist my plans and you will not talk to me with so much disrespect in your voice again or I will walk you into an early grave” “I apologize Master” said the now quivering woman, because she knew now how easily he could carry out his threat. Her eyes brushed briefly over the cut on her arm, just visible on the back of her hand. She still remembered the day that Rahn himself had etched it into her flesh. Back then she had been honoured to join ranks with him, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Now, what we must do next…” he paused, thinking. “The boy's Father is dead?” “Yes Master” Replied a voice from the table. “And his body is in our possession?” continued “Yes master” replied the same voice. “Any injuries on his body?” “Two bullet wounds to the head, from point blanc range sir.” After a long pause “Then, when this meeting concludes I will work with Mr Riley and try to finish the preparations for the plan.” This needed no explanation to the people in front of him. “Mrs Phelts, in the mean time I want a member of your team dispatched immediately to discover the remaining person of the warriors, once we have this information we can continue my plans.” “Yes Master I’ll get right on it as soon as this meeting finishes” “Perhaps you misheard me, I said immediately” “Yes Master” she said before leaving promptly for the 7th floor, to her office as the head of Intelligence for the servants of Rahn. Rahn turned to the man in the seat nearest him. “Mr Jaimin, you are to train your youngest fighter to perfection for the next time we meet. He must be able to take at least 2 of the warriors head on.” “I’ll get on it Master” he said, before getting up to leave. All the people left in the room were looking at Rahn, as if waiting anxiously for their orders. “Everyone else is to continue as normal, I want everything ready before our next meeting” He stood up and walked out of the room, taking special care to bump into Mr Riley. He went down all 13 sets of stairs, and finally down one more into the basement, with Mr Riley following closely behind, shaking with fear. * * * * * About a week had passed since Hailey had arrived to join the warriors. Matt woke up and put on his clothes. He went downstairs to join the 7 warriors who had now become like his family. They were talking and Matt joined them, sitting on the sofa next to Hailey and Stealth. About ten minutes into the conversation, where the topic had somehow drifted from Matt asking about the prophecy to what colour socks they were wearing, Fury stood up. “OK” he began “We need to find Sorrow and I personally think it would be pointless to scout the whole country for just one person. We need to find Sorrow and we need to do it before Rahn does. With no leads and no ideas where our missing warrior might be, we need to put our heads together and think. Any ideas people?” “We could try to get into the global satellite array and use that to loc-” started Gain, but he was very loudly interrupted by Fury “Oh, that’s your solution to everything! We need to find where Rahn is, let’s use the global satellite array! We need another warrior finding, lets use the global satellite array! We need to go the shop to get a bag of sugar, let’s use the global satellite array to find the nearest store!” “Yeah, and the problem with that is we don’t even know if it’s a ‘him’ we’re looking for, the satellite would be useless to us.” Said Patience. “We have to find out what we’re looking for if we want to find it.” “We know what we’re looking for” Said Influence “Assisted in battle, an ancient recent marking deep in the flesh, engraved by invisible hands.” It’s not much, but it’s all we have, and it found 8 of us so far.” “So you’re saying we continue to walk blindly and do nothing and hope that Sorrow crosses us?” asked Fury, starting to calm down now. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m suggesting” Fury waited for a second, looking down to the floor. He sighed, and finally spoke “OK then. Its all we have, so we’ll follow it.” He announced “We continue looking as we have done before.” Patience made to get up, moving towards the door, when Instinct called across to him. “No Patience.” She said calmly “We stay here today, we’ve earned the rest. Patience was about to retaliate, but he saw the twinge in Instinct’s eyes, which told him he’d better just do what she says. * * * * * Matt was lying outside, on the grassy field surrounding the hideout, simply gazing into the sky. He was thinking hard, something which it seemed he was doing a lot more of nowadays, Matt was surprised that his mind hadn’t cracked in the last couple of days. He took in a deep breath of the air, letting his lungs drink in the oxygen, before returning to his various thoughts. At the start of the week, his main thoughts would have been of his Father’s death, and indeed they were. But now he was thinking of something entirely different. Hailey. In just a week, he’d gotten closer to her than to any of the other warriors. Maybe, he thought, it was because they were the same age, she was the only person of his age that he had spoken to since he’d been expelled from school (Not including some girl scouts who were told very rudely by his mother that she hated cookies). Matt closed his eyes for a second, and he saw himself standing with Hailey, holding her hand. Matt forced himself to stop. “No” he told himself silently “I like her. Like Her. Not Love. It’s only because we’re friends. She’s my only friend in ages. I don’t love her, it’s just friendship.” But no matter how much he argued with himself, the vision of them holding hands grew warmer and warmer. More and more welcome. He saw her face in his mind. Her beautiful black hair, her deep brown eyes, her perfect lips. They were still holding hands, and he saw the lips moving closer to him, he cold feel them moving, even though they weren’t really there. Closer and closer until finally- “Matt?” Matt opened his eyes with a shock “Oh, Hailey, Hi, errm, How are you” Hailey laughed, and sat down next to him. Matt wondered what she’d say if she knew what he was just thinking about “So what were you thinking about?” asked Hailey. “Errrm, wha-, errm, nothing really.” “Matt, you’re a really bad liar” “Yeah, 2 years without really talking can do that to a person” “Oh well, you’ll get used to it. You have 8 people living with you now” “7” Said Matt “You keep forgetting that we haven’t found Sorrow yet” “Oh yeah” Said Hailey, who, had she not have made the same mistake often enough already, would have been blushing at the moment. Hailey’s hand was so close to his, and he had the sudden urge to slip his hand over hers. He fought against it, not wanting to ruin the friendship they already had. Instead, he chose to just talk to her instead, but he didn’t know what to say, so he just lay in the grass with her, waiting for a conversation starter, but still treasuring the time they were together. He looked over at Hailey from where he was lying, and realised how close she was. She was nearly touching him. Kaman was lying on his chest, half asleep, and she slowly started waking up. She stepped down off his chest and walked silently up to his head. She moved her face close to his ear, and whispered. “Ask her”. “Wha- I can’t” replied Matt, a little more loudly than he’d have hoped, considering he was so close to Hailey at the time. “What can’t you do?” Hailey asked, and Kaman crawled back onto Matt’s chest to go back to her half-sleep. Matt could swear he heard her whisper “You Owe me” as she went. “Oh, errm, nothing important” Matt said nervously. “What’s up with you lately Matt? You’ve been so secretive recently” “Well errm, I’ve had a lot on my mind” he stopped for a brief second. “Listen Hailey do you wa-“ but he was stopped mid-sentence by a shout from inside. “Hope? Stealth? Joy? Are you out here?” Hailey jumped to her feet, and Matt followed, perhaps a little slower. “I am, and Mat- I mean, Hope is, but we haven’t seen Stealth” Hailey shouted back in. “Well get your weapons, we’re being attacked.” * * * * * They ran inside to find Gain and Patience, who were just running out the front door. They went into the room which held the weapons and their armour so they could get theirs on. Stealth was the first to get his armour on, as he only had a set of armguards, and he grabbed his bow and ran to the door, Matt heard him going up the stairs to the roof. Matt got his arm and leg guards on next and ran for outside with Hailey not far behind him. They reached the front door together and Matt looked at the situation. There were 9 men fighting the warriors who were out there already. One was lying dead on the ground and Matt saw that some of the warriors were fighting two men. Matt noticed Instinct was one of them, and Matt and rushed to help her, but before he reached her, he felt a fist dig into his back. He turned around, nearly wrenching his neck out of place, and swiped randomly with the sword in his front hand. It missed his attacker completely, but the attacker jumped back, giving Matt a chance to adjust himself. Matt saw a sword in his right hand, about 3 feet in length, and he wore a leather chest guard. Matt took the sword in his back hand in an upwards slash and narrowly missed the man, who responded by swinging his sword into Matt’s right side, but Matt managed to pull both swords into the way, blocking the attack. Matt tried another attack, but this one was blocked by the man’s sword. Matt stepped backwards to give himself a bit of time to think, but to no avail as the man let out another strike, this time attempting to hit him in the neck. Matt ducked quickly and kicked out at the man’s legs, but the man jumped backwards and out of range of Matt’s kick. Matt tried another attack as he stood back up, bringing both swords upwards at once. The man blocked it again by simply holding his sword horizontally, and clashing with both swords. Fully stood up now, Matt used both swords, in alternating attacks, but each of them was blocked perfectly by the man. This wasn’t working, Matt thought to himself. He had to find another way to beat Rahn’s servant. After several more attacks from both Matt and the servant, Matt saw what he had to do. He tried one more attack, which was blocked. The force of the block on this last one knocked the sword from his front hand, and it flew in to the ground, the blade stuck into the earth. He swung the sword in his left hand forwards, and the man stepped forwards to block it, forcing Matt to take a step back. The man attacked once more, stepping forwards again, and Matt stepped back once more. He caught his foot on a rock and tumbled to the ground. His sword flew out of his hand and joined the other one on the floor. The man stood over Matt tauntingly, and brought the sword down for one last slash across Matt’s throat. Everything happened very quickly. Matt reached inside his jacket for the knife Stealth had given him, and as the man’s sword just passed Matt’s neck, he slammed the dagger into the man’s wrist. He let out a deep yell, and retreated back, clutching his hand. His sword had fallen on the floor next to Matt, and Matt picked it up, scrambling to his feet. Just as Matt managed to stand up, the man dived for his legs, apparently choosing to ignore the pain surging through his hand. Matt was taken by shock and hit the floor hard, and the man picked his sword up with his left hand. Matt ran for his swords, and managed to pick up the one which wasn’t embedded in the ground, before a sword narrowly missed him. He stood and turned to see the man try and get one last swipe in, but Matt acted too fast. He swiped his sword across the man’s leg, and his lower leg left his body. The man lost his balance and lay on the floor, helpless. Matt kicked the sword away, and removed the dagger from the man’s wrist, putting it instead in his throat. Matt felt the last breath’s leave him with a struggle and wrenched the dagger out of the mans throat, putting it back into his jacket, and stood up to see how everyone else was doing. Each warrior was one on one with one of Rahn’s servants and Stealth hadn’t made it to the rooftop yet. There were 6 of Rahn’s servants fighting and three were now dead. 9. There was one missing. Matt looked around frantically for the missing man. He didn’t see him anywhere he looked, until he saw the door to the base ajar and realised what had happened. He sped for the door and slammed it shut behind him. One of Rahn’s servants was at the base and Matt had to find him. He ran first to the room he had just came from, where the weapons were. He saw nothing here, no signs of damage or presence in the room and went back into the meeting room they were all just sitting in. He took a look around this room, peering behind the settees, under the coffee table (which had a glass top anyway, but he still looked) and even behind the bin in the corner of the room. He tried the next room along, but as he reached the door, he heard footsteps above him. He shot over to the stairs and took them two at a time until he was on the first floor. He ran for his room, because it was the only one with the door open, but again he found no-one here or no signs of intrusion. He remembered not shutting the door on his way out this morning. He tried the other rooms, but they were all locked. Only one place left to look now. He ran up to the roof and found Stealth there, fighting off the man hand to hand with no weapon. Matt remembered that Stealth had a bow as his weapon and it couldn’t be used in short range combat. “Stealth” Matt shouted “Catch” and he threw his second sword over to Stealth, who caught it in his left hand. Matt ran towards Stealth’s attacker and as he did so, he noticed the incredible amount of armour he was wearing. Virtually his entire body was covered in Metal plate armour. Matt brought his sword down, hearing the clash of metal against armour. The attacker turned and swung his sword into Matt’s side, but Matt managed to jump out of the way of the strike. Stealth used Matt’s other sword and brought it in a downwards swing into the back of the attackers armour to the same unfortunate clash as Matt had reached. Matt and Stealth now both worked at the attackers near impenetrable armour with the two swords while the man was using his sword to block as many blows as he could, the remainder hitting his solid armour, causing him no damage, while he was landing a few of his own attacks. Matt Held his sword strongly in his front hand, and tried winging it harder, in an attempt to break through the strangely thick armour. He came to no better off, because the strike didn’t even scratch the armour. Stealth tried a different approach. He was simply running around the back of the man, constantly hacking away at the armour, but he produced similar results to Matt. Not even a scratch. They must have been up here fighting at least 5 minutes, and Matt was starting to tire. If he didn’t beat the man soon, he’d be out of energy. Stealth was the one who saw the flaw in the armour. He swung the sword upwards into the chest of the armour, decoying the fact that he’d found where the flaw was. Then without warning he shouted- “Hope, The neck” He threw Matt’s sword up into the air and Matt took advantage of his attacker’s confusion, kicking him forwards and jumping to catch the falling sword. The attacker stumbled forwards and Matt raised each sword over his shoulder and brought them in a crossing motion across the gap where he neck was. The attackers head fell clean off. Matt ran to the edge of the rooftop, where Stealth had taken his Bow and was now firing into the fight. Matt looked over and saw that there were three men left and the 6 warriors who were down there were overpowering them easily. Stealth fired an arrow which found its place in the heart of one of the three servants who remained. Another arrow found its home in the arm of one of the servants, rendering him unable to use that arm. Hailey brought her sword across the one armed man’s neck and Matt saw that Instinct had dealt with the final of Rahn’s servants. The tension cleared in the air, and Stealth Threw his bow down to the floor and started doing some kind of weird dance. Matt laughed at him, and he didn’t know why, but he had the strange urge to join him. He sank to the floor, relieved that he was still alive, and just he reached the floor, he shot back up again when he heard a voice from behind him. “Abandon your assault” it said. Stealth stopped dancing and they both turned hastily to find no-one there. It was the radio of the man he’d just killed. “I Repeat, Abandon your assault. We have located the one they call Sorrow. You are to take your team north instantly. The co-ordinates for your destination have been uploaded into the digital map in your radio” “Hey Stealth” shouted Matt “Did you hear that?” “Yeah. They’ve found Sorrow for us.”
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