by V F Sharp
Just as Pallu finished his sentence, a loud horn sounded. It had come from the trees behind the beach. A group of knights parted the crowd to make room as King Izhar emerged on a white horse with his men alongside. One of his horsemen carried the red and black twin-raven flag of Rhyceton.
As she watched the pageantry of the king and his guard marching through the cheering crowds, another horn sounded. Toward her right, the prince arrived with his horsemen. Two riders behind the prince held the blue and gold flag of Old Vynterra. The thunderous roar of the crowd was deafening as the two sets of knights rode toward the docks.
Lanzzie looked around and watched as several couples shared a final embrace and fathers said goodbye to their sons and daughters. And yet, Ezstasia wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Remember,” said Pallu. “We won’t stop looking. Meanwhile, you go and save the world.”
Lanzzie nodded and hugged Pallu and Ellie again. Meanwhile, she noticed that Jezreel and Ithron were walking toward them. By the looks of Jezreel, with her reddened eyes and persistent sniffles, she wasn’t taking Ithron’s pending departure well. She also noticed that Randin and Zander were busy encouraging one another.
“It’s time,” said Sir Layton. Lanzzie turned to see the prince and his men standing up ahead waiting for them. The king was beside the prince on his horse and Izhar’s men stood to the side in formation. She noticed a group of men beginning to pull the gangplank away from the Arboran. She took one last look around to try to grab a glimpse of Ezstasia, and then reluctantly followed the rest of her friends behind Sir Layton up onto the Valorian.
She looked back with tears and sorrow at Pallu and Ellie, Randin, and Jezreel. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever see them again. Hoping that only good fortune lay ahead for all of them, she prayed the stars would guide their journey and that Pallu and the others would find her sister alive and well.
She turned her head toward the ships and walked with Fin and Meldon. Ithron and Zander were already up ahead with Layton. On the way, she spotted an old man in the crowd, standing straight and proud with an infectious smile, bowing as they passed. As sad as she might have been, his face had given her a sense of pride and a necessary reminder of how important this mission was. It offered her a sense of purpose. And in an odd way, she felt like it was Ezstasia sending her a message: to keep going, and that it’s okay to be scared, but also that some things in life are just bigger than all of them.
As they approached the prince and the king, she took one final look back. In the distance she saw another army of knights walking out from the trees.
“I think that other army is late,” she said to the prince.
“What other army?” he said.
She pointed back toward the trees. “That other army.”
The prince looked into the distance. His eyes widened with a fear that she had never seen in him before.
“Zaros!” said the prince. “Who’s that with him?”
“Vorokians!” yelled Sir Layton.
“Get to the ships now!” yelled King Izhar. “Go!”
“You’ll never defeat them,” said the prince. “There are too many.”
“Who said anything about defeating them?” said the king. “Now go!”
The prince hesitated, but obeyed, and rushed Lanzzie and the others past him.
“Take them!” he yelled to Sir Layton. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Layton quickly led them onto the gangplank. Lanzzie ran as fast as she could up the flimsy board after the others, glancing back to see the prince and his men following behind her.
“Cut the lines!” yelled the prince. She watched as a group of men by the docks heeded his orders and ran with their axes toward the Willow.
She climbed onto the Valorian behind Meldon, Fin, Zander, and Ithron, and craned her neck to see the knights swinging their axes by the Willow’s lines. They broke its thick ropes and the smaller ship slowly, yet eagerly, inched away from the dock.
Once the Willow was set free, Lanzzie watched nervously as the men ran to the Arboran’s lines and cut them one by one. Her heart in her throat, she watched as the ships began to part from the dock. The Valorian was the last remaining ship. She looked back toward the oncoming army and watched countless men continue to run out of the trees and head straight for them. Some were knights, but most of them were Vorokian savages. There must’ve been hundreds of them.
“Hoist the sails!” yelled one of the crewmen.
She climbed a wooden ladder to the upper deck and was nearly knocked over when knights rushed past her. She saw that they had unsheathed their swords in preparation for battle and exited the ship. She continued to the deck and ran to the edge to look down at the beach. Fin and the others ran up beside her.
She heard a loud noise behind her and gazed up to see multiple layers of massive, square sails rising up on three separate masts, while dozens of crewmen desperately pulled the lines. The sails all began to expand and catch the wind.
“What’s taking so long!” yelled one knight from the deck below.
Lanzzie looked down at the docks and watched in horror as a group of knights drew their swords to defend the ship against the Vorokians. King Izhar and his men bravely rushed toward the oncoming army, grossly outnumbered. Within seconds, the two armies clashed, and Zaros’s men completely engulfed Izhar and his knights.
Izhar fought bravely; he battled three to four men at a time, engaging and killing one man after the other. The Vorokian men fought like savages, using shields, clubs and other barbaric weapons that Lanzzie had never even seen before. There were just too many of them. She looked over at the prince whose eyes expressed deep defeat and sorrow. She knew that the outcome was going to be devastating.
The people in the crowd were running toward the trees and to the sides of the docks in a panic, tripping over one another and over themselves. Children screamed and cried loudly as their mothers scooped them up and ran toward the trees. Lanzzie frantically looked around for Pallu, Randin, and Jezreel, but she couldn’t spot them anywhere.
“Get the weapons!” yelled someone behind her.
Fin and the others ran back to help some of the knights lift several heavy crates and she watched as they attempted to pry them open.
Just then, Lanzzie spotted Pallu and Ellie on the beach. They were pulling Jezreel toward some large rocks by the coast. Randin was running to catch up to them. Relieved they were safe for the moment, she continued looking for her sister among the chaos as the Vorokians and King Zaros’s men tried to forcefully get through to the ships.
She looked down to see whether the lines of the Valorian had been fully cut yet, and was devastated to see the men who were cutting them had both been struck down with spears. Another group of men rushed toward the lines and picked up the axes near the fallen men, only to be speared themselves. Two knights jumped off the ship and made their way to the axes, picked them up, and began to cut at the remaining rope that held the ship to the dock. They finally cut the lines of the Valorian loose. Flying spears struck down the brave men, just as the ship began to pull away from the dock.
Lanzzie couldn’t believe what she was seeing on the docks and on the beach. Men ran toward one another with axes in hand, dodging one another and fighting for their lives. The clinking of the swords, shields, and other weapons could be heard from every direction. One knight grabbed a sword from the scabbard of one of Zaros’s men and killed the man with his own sword. Another fought valiantly, using three weapons at a time to fend off one oncoming Vorokian after another, until one of Zaros’s men killed him from behind. By now, most of those on the side of Rhyceton and Old Vynterra were struggling desperately, and they began falling one by one.
As she looked around, brave male villagers picked up the weapons of the dead to help keep King Zaros’s men from breaking through to the ships. The piercing screams of men felled by swords and axes could be heard alongside the panicked whinnying of injured horses. Innocent villagers s
truggled to flee from the battlefield, frantically screaming and running out of the way. She watched in horror as a few of them were senselessly killed when they had the misfortune to cross paths with one of the brutal Vorokians.
Lanzzie had never witnessed anything so gruesome in her entire life. The whole scene was horrifying, with countless knights slaughtered along the beach. She couldn’t find King Izhar to determine whether or not he was still alive. It was becoming dreadfully clear that Zaros’s army had won the battle and was about to invade the ship.
Zaros led his men past the defeated army toward the Valorian. When he reached the end of the dock, he held up his hand and halted his men after realizing that the ship had already been cut loose from the dock. He yelled something to his men—she couldn’t make out his words—and they all turned and retreated north up the coast. They must have been pleased by the damage they had done, as few of Izhar’s and Alazar’s men were left standing.
She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked hastily for the prince. She spotted him up at the helm with several guards, working tirelessly to steer the ship out of port. The devastating agony from having lost so many men and possibly his own father, was evident on his face. With a knot in her stomach, Lanzzie returned her gaze to the beach.
She looked up the coast and spotted a single knight from Zaros’s army riding quickly back down toward the ship. He was alone and appeared determined, racing with a vengeance in the ship’s direction. As he got closer, she determined by his wavy braids and fur garments that he was one of the Vorokians. He was holding a large bow as he rode. Near the ship, he halted his horse and drew the bow. Her heart sunk as she realized exactly where he was aiming.
“Prince Alazar!” she yelled. With all the noise on the ship and knights running back and forth, the prince couldn’t hear her. She turned to run toward Fin, who was closer to the prince, but a large crate blocked her way, with smaller crates next to it alongside two wooden barrels. She screamed louder to get the attention of the knights, or anyone that could hear her for that matter.
“Prince Alazar!”
She turned back toward the beach and watched with painstaking dread as the Vorokian released his arrow at its intended target.
“Prince Alazar!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
She watched the arrow fly across the sky directly at the prince who was still unaware. The inevitable future of a decimated Old Vynterra and the destruction of her very own Cottages flashed before her eyes.
As Lanzzie helplessly tracked the velocity of the arrow, she saw another bright object dart across the sky from the opposite direction. It was another arrow and it was moving even faster than the Vorokian’s.
To her amazement, the incoming arrow knocked the Vorokian’s arrow right off its path with a deafening bang. The savage’s arrow shattered before it hit the prince, and its remnants fell to the sea.
That got the prince’s attention; he and the other knights on board rushed to the outer deck to see what had caused the loud explosion.
Lanzzie was bewildered, and she saw that the Vorokian was, too.
She searched the beach to see where it came from and saw an army of knights—mostly in black armor—rushing toward the docks from the south with a single knight leading the way. The prince and his men began to cheer with a frenzied excitement.
“Who are they?” said Fin, as he pushed one of the heavy crates out of the way and stood beside Lanzzie.
She squinted her eyes as the leader of the army drew an arrow mid-gallop, remaining upright on the majestic, black horse. A large group of black-armored knights followed closely behind.
Then she realized. This was no ordinary knight.
“It’s Ezstasia!” yelled Fin. “What is she doing!?”
Lanzzie gasped and held her breath. The Vorokian kicked his horse into full gallop. He grabbed an arrow from his quiver and reloaded his bow while racing toward her sister. They headed straight toward one other, both of them with determined ferocity and without the slightest hint of fear.
“No!” shouted Lanzzie.
She watched helplessly as Ezstasia barreled forward on her horse from the opposite direction of the Vorokian, bow drawn. Before she knew it, Ezstasia had released her arrow with such lightning speed that she could barely see the flaming streak darting across the beach and straight into the Vorokian’s chest. He instantly dropped from his horse. The man never even had a chance to fire his own arrow.
The ship erupted in bittersweet cheers and the crowds that had scurried to the trees from the beach came out from hiding. Lanzzie could barely breathe. Tears welled up in her eyes with the realization that her sister really was still alive.
“Ezstasia!” she shouted. But the ship had sailed so far from the port already that she knew her sister couldn’t hear her.
Still on her horse, Ezstasia turned her head and looked directly at Lanzzie. She lifted her bow and waved it at the ship while she trotted on her majestic steed toward the injured knights and villagers strewn out across the docks and beach. Lanzzie knew that her sister was waving at her. With a flood of emotion, she smiled through her tears and waved back. She didn’t know what bizarre twist of fate had brought her sister to lead the most powerful army in Old Vynterra, but she was glad it did.
Just then, the prince came up beside her, along with Meldon, Zander and Ithron.
She glanced sideways at the prince’s melancholy expression as he stared out at the disappearing Vynterran coast. She thought of his father, King Izhar, and hoped that he had survived, though it was impossible to tell amongst the piles of bodies left scattered on the beach. The king fought gloriously in that overmatched battle. There was no question as to why he was known as Izhar the Great.
“Do you think he’s alive?” she said. “Your father?”
“I don’t know,” said the prince solemnly.
She held her head down, not quite sure what to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He looked at her and smiled faintly. “Your sister is quite the inspiration,” he said. “You all are. I would be dead right now if it wasn’t for her. And our mission would have ended before it even began. That relentlessly determined girl from the Cottages saved us all.”
“If there’s one thing she is,” said Ithron, “it’s determined.”
“And she sure is great with a bow,” said Zander. “I think this beats her apple shot.”
“Apple shot?” said the prince.
Lanzzie and the others laughed.
“I was actually going to eat that apple,” said Meldon. “But nobody remembers that part of the story.”
Lanzzie smiled and gazed back toward the shore. She watched as the people got smaller and smaller while the wind carried the Valorian and the other two ships into the great unknown. It wasn’t lost on her that all of those people’s lives could well depend upon the adventures that she would now be undertaking alongside the Prince of Vynterra and the greatest friends anyone could imagine. Now, more than ever, she wanted this mission to succeed. What she saw Ezstasia do had awakened an intense desire inside of her—a desire to fight for mankind. This journey had to succeed. She had a sister to get back to.
* * * *
Looking out among the hundreds of dead and injured, Ezstasia was filled with a potpourri of emotion. She was eternally grateful to be alive, and more than anything else, relieved that Lanzzie, her friends, and the prince were safe and sailing to the Magiclands. She was hopeful that their journey would bear fruit. She only wished she’d had a chance to explain to Lanzzie what had happened, and couldn’t imagine the worry that she must have put her through. She was grateful to have had one last look at her, even if it had been from a distance. She couldn’t help but worry about what horrors they might face on their voyage. The thought that she might never see any of them again was unbearable.
As people approached her to thank her for her courage, she realized that she didn’t feel like much of a hero. There weren’t any victors in th
is battle. Only survivors. It would be a rough road ahead.
She stepped carefully through the fallen knights and horses, looking for anyone still alive and in need of help. People began to come out from behind the trees to survey the damage. In the distance, she saw a familiar face in the crowd. Pallu was coming toward her, holding Ellie’s hand. She ran toward him.
“Thank the stars you’re alive!” she said. “Both of you.”
“Thank the stars you are alive!” said Pallu. “You had everyone worried sick.”
She hugged Pallu and was overcome with emotion. She was thankful to be reunited with him. She glanced around at the other people walking aimlessly in a daze.
“Where are Jez and Randin?” she said, concerned.
“Back by the trees,” said Pallu. “You know Jez. She didn’t think it was safe to come out here yet. But tell me about you! How did you do that!? And who were those men wearing furry things anyway?”
“It’s a long story,” she said. “They’re Vorokians. I’ll tell you more on the way back.”
“Well whoever they were, one of them came right up to us holding a giant axe.”
“How did you get away?”
“I used my speed, of course,” said Pallu smirking. “With great precision, I reached into Ellie’s bag and offered him a lemon cake.”
“Our kingdom for a pastry,” said Ellie, smiling.
Just then Ezstasia heard a groan coming from under a pile of men.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “we have to try to help these people. Even if there’s little we can do.”
“Come, Pallu,” said Ellie. “Let’s try to help.”
Ezstasia made her way to the injured knight and called others over to help him.
“Lady Arrow,” said a voice from behind her. It was Sir Aldus. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do what you did. That was truly remarkable. You’re one of us, now.”
“Thank you, Sir Aldus,” she said, humbled that he’d think so. “I still have a lot to learn.”
“Yes,” he said, “you do. But if you’re willing, we will offer you the best instructors in the kingdom. I’ll see to that myself.”
