“Let Rander and Rief come with me,” Alec said. “Rander has a sword, and Rief might recognize something about the Michian forces.
“They need to know that help is on its way. They need to know that this ambush is being prepared,” he added.
“Rander, you know you can’t let him do anything foolish, right?” Nathaniel said. “It does make sense to send someone forward to contact them. Make sure you try to get the Michian forces bunched up in a solid mass when they are inside the mouth of the valley,” he instructed.
Alec rode over to Bethany. “I’ll be back soon, I promise. Stay safe here, please,” he said as he leaned over to kiss her.
“I know you have to do this, because you’re Alec. Just be safe. Don’t be a hero, please,” she said as she hugged him.
With that he and Rander and Rief rode forward, out of the valley, Alec’s hand throbbing with additional pain as they moved forward to find the last remnants of opposition to the Michian invasion. Within thirty minutes they heard the faint sounds of battle, and Alec pulled his bow off his saddle, and slung his quiver over his shoulder. As they trotted forward the sounds grew louder, and he engaged his warrior powers.
He heard the sounds of the battle more clearly, and as they turned a curve around a clump of trees, they saw the dozen remaining riders trying to fight their way free of two score attackers. Alec recognized Imelda’s long blond hair, and Rashrew’s thickset torso. He pulled an arrow out and took careful aim as Walnut advanced, with Rander and Rief beside him. They were too far from the battle for either to help without the enhanced abilities Alec had.
Alec let the first arrow fly, and automatically notched the second one, shifted his aim, and let it fly, then pulled forth a third and shot again, and again and again, so that six arrows were in the air simultaneously. “Give me one of yours,” he told Rander.
Rander gave him several as he held his hand out, and the first flight of arrows began to hit their targets. Imelda watched two men in front of her fall from their horses, as did Rashrew, and two other Bondell riders saw their own attackers slump forward with arrows in their chests. Both sides paused monetarily as they tried to understand what had happened, and then more arrows fell among the Michian riders, while Alec fired off his extra supply of arrows.
“Imelda, Rashrew, fall back!” Alec screamed as he rode forward.
“Tarnum! Don’t you go any closer!” Rief shouted at Alec.
All heads from the Bondell contingent swiveled to look around upon hearing Alec’s voice.
“Alec! You’re almost a welcome sight!” Imelda shouted. “Forces retreat to the protector!” and all the riders started pulling their reins to ride back to Alec.
He strung another arrow from Rander’s supply, and shot it at the first Michian rider to begin to pursue the flight.
“Alec! Aim for their horses!” Imelda shouted. “They don’t have many!”
Alec notched another arrow, and swore under his breath. At the moment he felt more guilt over the death of one of the innocent animals than he did the death of the soldiers on top of them. Lowering his aim, he shot at the horse of the rider he had just aimed for, then he strung another arrow and shot at an animal still back on the pack. His hand felt awash with pain now, and he was relieved to cease shooting.
Moments later both animals were down on the ground with arrows in their neck, and the other Michian riders were hesitant to approach Alec’s deadly firepower.
Alec stood as a lonely sentinel on the middle of the road, as Rander and Rief joined him from behind while the Bondell force thundered towards him from the front. All forces joined together simultaneously around Alec, and Rief was surprised beyond belief when the exhausted Imelda actually leapt out of her saddle onto Alec’s and hugged him emotionally.
“We thought we were dead!” Rashrew shouted, pounding Alec’s back as he joined them. “How do you manage to be here now?”
“We’re the advance guard of the advance guard of the advance guard,” Alec shouted back. “Get your men in motion for a slow retreat. We’ve got an ambush set up in a valley about a half hour back down the road.”
“Imelda,” Alec looked into her eyes as they sat inches apart facing each other. He was awash with emotions, and could say nothing else for several long moments.
“This is an awfully uncomfortable way to sit in a saddle,” she said after pausing to wait for him. “How are you?”
“Go ahead and get in your saddle, and let’s start to pull back,” Alec directed. “We can speak as we ride.”
“In the valley there are a number of ingenairii setting up an ambush if we can lure the Michian forces to come enter in large numbers,” Alec explained as they started to slowly back up from the encounter.
“You may have put too much of the fear of God in them!” Rashrew commented. “They don’t look anxious to follow us.”
“I’m about out of arrows, and my hand hurts too much to shoot any more at the moment anyway,” Alec admitted. “Let’s get some more distance between us and them while we can.”
“Their commander won’t let them hang back long in any event,” another Bondell rider said. “They’ve been sacrificing men to keep pushing us hard these past couple of days.”
“Who are your companions, Alec?” Imelda asked.
“This is Rander, the steward of the palace at Oyster Bay, and this is Rief, my friend and companion who travelled with me from a visit to the homeland of the invaders,” Alec announced.
“You’ve been to their land?” Rashrew exclaimed in shock.
“I have. They are determined to overwhelm us and conquer the Dominion, and it’s up to us to stop them here before they can spread out and attack in all directions,” Alec answered.
“Rander, Rief, this is Rashrew, who I fought with when we defended Bondell from the forces of the Oyster Bay coup, and this is Imelda,” Alec introduced.
“Ah,” Rief said. “Is she the one you and Bethany spoke about?”
Alec looked at Imelda, whose eyes had widened at Bethany’s name. “Yes, she’s the one.
“Bethany is here with the ingenairii waiting for us down the road,” he told Imelda. “She and I are engaged,” he added hastily after a pause.
Imelda’s face showed shock for just a second. “You two were meant to be with one another,” she started to say.
“Here they come,” a trooper announced, as the Michian riders began to advance.
“Everyone keep in order, and keep pulling back,” Rander spoke up. “We’re going to be the bait for the next few minutes until we can get them where we want them.”
“You say they don’t have many mounted soldiers? How closely will the infantry follow behind the horsemen?” Alec asked. “I’d like to get as many as possible.”
“The foot soldiers don’t drop too far behind. If we could get their riders into the ambush and then slow them down so the infantry catches up, you can get your wish. And you’d make me happy!” Rashrew said. “We haven’t won anything in the past month since we killed those animals that disappear.”
“I knew that had to be you! That really slowed them down. In Michian we heard about that, and four generals were hanged for the loss of those animals!” Alec told them.
“Rief,” he suddenly said, “you ride back and tell Nathaniel that he needs to make sure he kills or captures all the Michian horses he can,” Alec instructed.
“Is there anything you want me to tell Bethany?” her eyes flickered to Imelda.
“Tell her Imelda is safe, and tell Bethany that I love her,” Alec said, as Imelda politely appeared to not listen.
Rief urged her horse to a greater speed and rode awkwardly towards the west, while the rest of the group tried to maintain the right distance to draw the invaders forward.
“They’re picking up speed!” one rider noted a minute later.
Alec notched another arrow, leaving him only two more, and fired it at the lead horse, then fired the last two as well. Three horses fell to the ground
, and the Michian advance stopped.
Rashrew whistled for his riders to stop as well. “They only had a handful of horses of their own when they started to come out of their canyon,” he recounted to Rander and Alec. “But they’ve acquired a number along the way as they’ve plundered farms and villages.”
The Bondell forces began to withdraw again, and the Michian riders began to pursue them again immediately. “They’re gaining on us,” Rander observed, and Alec saw that to his surprise the invaders were apparently coming recklessly forward, not knowing that he was out of arrows.
“Let’s speed up a little until we get to the mouth of the canyon, where we can turn and slow them down to bunch them up,” Alec suggested.
“Our horses are played out, Alec,” Rashrew answered. “We can’t ride them any faster. I’m surprised they’re still moving at all.”
Alec knew they didn’t have far to go. “You all keep moving. I’ll try to slow them down,” he said as he reined Walnut in. “Go! Get going! We’re almost there.”
Rander pulled up fifty yards behind him. “I can see the mouth of the valley Alec,” he reported. “Come back here where you’ll be a little safer.”
Alec looked at the opposing riders, who had slowed momentarily when they had recognized their archer nemesis taking a stand, apparently fearing another rain of deadly arrows. But then they had begun to come on regardless, with a courage that he admitted was admirable. Alec turned and saw that the Bondell riders had already moved on another hundred yards, and he turned Walnut towards the valley, resuming his retreat. Behind the horses he could see infantry soldiers moving in a loose formation, keeping up with the cavalry.
At the mouth of the valley Alec stopped, as he saw the Bondell horses beginning to falter badly; one horse went down from exhaustion, and Imelda slid off hers to lead it forward. The Michian riders also saw the approaching end of the ride for their quarry and they began to gallop forward towards Alec, feeling more confident in approaching him.
He only needed to hold them back for two more minutes, he judged, and then his friends from Bondell would be safe and he could let the invaders ride into the trap. Despite the pain in his hand, he drew his sword from his left hip and passed it to his right hand. A half dozen leading riders were within twenty yards now, and Alec engaged his own powers to the fullest degree, then slid off Walnut and slapped his hind quarters, spurring the horse to gallop back into the safety of the valley.
“Alec!” he faintly heard a voice wail, though whose it was he couldn’t tell, as he rushed forward and plunged his sword into the neck of a horse, while pulling out a dagger and throwing it at a rider on another horse. He rolled through a forest of horse legs and came up standing behind the first horses, then attacked them again before they could turn to face him. More horses were riding up, and score of men were running towards the battle scene.
Alec circled swiftly around the Michian riders and began backing towards the valley. A noise behind him distracted him, and he saw Imelda running towards him, her own sword drawn as she screamed a savage war cry. Alec swiftly ran back to her and reached out, grabbing her arm, as he fought with his right hand.
“Get back!” he snarled.
“I won’t let you fight alone,” she shouted as she shook free of him and killed a foot soldier. The enemy horsemen were dismounting now, and Alec and Imelda were backing up rapidly, standing side by side as they continued to fall deeper into the valley.
Alec heard a grunt, and turned to see Imelda suffer a stab to her thigh.
Angry at seeing her wounded, and angry to see her out in the midst of the battle, Alec slew three men around them rapidly, and caught her as she began to fall. He dropped his sword and placed his right hand under her knees to carry her away, when he felt a stab in his own back, and another blade slice the back of his thigh. He screamed in pain, but called on his warrior powers to propel him out of reach of the attackers, and he stumbled forward twenty yards, then fell forward, thrusting Imelda out in front of him, and they both lay on the ground as the Michian foot soldiers ran towards them.
Chapter 48 – Flight from the Demon
Alec groaned and rolled over onto his side, just in time to see a bolt of flame flare ten feet over his head and char the soldiers about to descend on him. A moment later he saw a steady stream of arrows fly farther above him on their way to the back ranks of the Michian forces. Another blast of fire flew through the air, and more of the soldiers immediately near him screamed momentarily before they died.
Alec dropped his warrior powers in exhaustion, then saw Bethany and Rief running towards him. “Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t be a hero’?” Bethany shouted at him as she placed a hand on his back. He felt her healing powers sooth and remove the pain as she rubbed her hand along his back, then her hand slid down to his thigh, and that wound too was healed. “They’re not pretty to look at, but the worst damage is repaired,” she said clinically. She scuttled forward to where Rief was tending to Imelda’s wound.
“Are you a healer, too?” the cavalry commander asked in astonishment.
Rief and Bethany both nodded their heads.
Alec turned abruptly as he heard Imelda say, “I am too!”
“You have powers?” he asked her.
“I do. I’ve been healing injuries after battles and keeping our folks in the saddle for weeks now, ever since you saved my life,” she replied. “Is that what happened for you too?” she asked Bethany.
“We need to get you people up and out of here,” Nathaniel shouted as he raced by them, headed towards hand-to-hand combat with the nearby Michian soldiers. Alec stood up and re-engaged his warrior powers. They were weak, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to sustain his energies for long. Moriah and Rubicon went by in a blur, and Alec picked up a sword near the body of a dead Michian soldier and joined the battle with the other warrior ingenairii.
The use of flames and arrows together had inflicted terrible casualties on the vanguard of the invasion force, and those further back had not come forward into the valley after seeing the gouts of flame. Bondell soldiers stationed up on the hillsides were shooting arrows towards the mouth of the valley, further cutting off new soldiers.
A score of Michian soldiers remained trapped in the valley, and the warrior ingenairii were engaged in fierce swordplay with them as Alec joined the fray. Together the four warriors mercilessly battled the soldiers who surrounded them, and cleared the valley of living opponents.
“Alec! What were you thinking?” Nathaniel shouted at Alec as soon as the last opponent went down. “You were not supposed to put yourself in any kind of danger!”
“Up until the end I was fine,” Alec said meekly.
“Up until the end? Up until the end?” Bethany growled as she came forward. “I about had a heart attack when you got off Walnut and charged into the Michian riders!” She hugged him fiercely, and he dropped his borrowed sword to wrap his arms around her.
Rubicon placed his fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle to signal the others located throughout the valley. Alec watched as men and women started scrambling down the hillsides. “We need to fall back and figure out our next action,” he said as he started to walk back towards the rear of the valley, stepping among the dead soldiers.
Alec looked around for the spot where he had thrown down his own sword. Spying it, he walked forward, holding Bethany’s hand, and picked it up. A few scattered horses were nearby and unharmed, and Alec grabbed the reins of one. “Take her back to join our horses,” he told Bethany, handing her the lead. “I’ll get some of these others.” Nathaniel and Imelda saw what he was doing and came forward to join him. Together, then led a half dozen horses back around the bend in the road where the rest of the forces had gathered.
“What do we do now?” Alec asked as they walked up to the gathering.
“We put a big hurt on them,” Rubicon said.
“That’s the biggest bloody nose they’ve got since we killed their magic animals,” Rashrew agree
d.
Alec’s left hand began to throb painfully.
“We could try to set up another ambush here, around the corner out of their sight,” Rubicon suggested. “Our goal is to slow them down as long as we can so our forces can get to the bridge to set up the defenses.”
“They’ll come around the corner with more caution, I’m sure,” Moriah said.
“Do they march at night?” Nathaniel asked.
“No, not so far,” Imelda replied.
“If we can hit them here in the backside of the valley, they won’t get any farther today,” Nathaniel said. “Let’s set up a small formation we can withdraw from easily. And Alec,” he said, turning to look at his friend. “You stay in the back this time!”
Several laughed appreciatively. “Alright,” Alec agreed, “but you all need to stay safe up front. Don’t take any risks!” More laughter at the irony of his comment followed.
Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian Page 39
