by Bethan Johns
Letting her take the offense, I studied her style as she weaved in and out. I took a few shallow hits on my arms and torso.
After a few minutes, I had her rhythm. Picking up my speed a small amount, I danced quickly around her on the balls of my feet and kicked her in the lower back, she jostled forward.
I caught her by the hair and dragged her backwards using my other hand to slice upwards through it.
She spun around angrily as I threw a few inches of her hair at her, smirking cockily.
I knew how much Howelltie hair meant to them. Before she could run for me I sped towards her and grabbed her hand. I launched myself using her bodyweight to spin around her. Feeling her shoulder pop out of the socket, I let go, and gripping her shoulders from behind I dug my bare toes into her belt and hooked on, gripping her sides with my knees. She lashed out slicing up my thighs and ankles, the ash burning into my skin.
I pulled hard on the shoulder I had just dislocated, and she roared at me. Punching her hard in the jaw, her face spewed blood from the razor gauntlets.
I flipped over her shoulders and landed for a split second before jumping into the air and backhanding her hard across the face.
As she spat blood in an arc across the floor of the pit she brought her other arm, the one not dislocated, sweeping up to slice across my jaw.
I smiled to myself as I feinted backwards, letting it seem like I was moving into the defensive. I gripped the whip at my waist and quickly flicked it into the air to form a lasso.
I brought it down over her head and shoulders dragging her quickly to me I hit her one, two, three times square in the face. I felt her bones crunch beneath the metal of my gauntlets and her face was no longer even remotely recognizable. She fell to the ground in a heap, still breathing, but barely.
I looked up and locked eyes with Sylek as I walked over and crushed her face beneath my bare foot by stomping one, two, three times.
I could feel the hot innards of what once was Autumn’s brain slick between my toes. The deed was done after one stomp, but I reflected my punches for dramatic effect. Breathing heavily, I looked around and met the glare of many Howelltie warriors, their faces shocked.
✽✽✽
Sylek
I stared down at her. She stared back. When she broke eye contact to look around at the mercenaries now gawking at her I joined them. She was a sight to behold. Covered in blood standing firm with her bare foot planted in what used to be autumn of Glock’s face, now a bloody mass. Her chest was heaving.
She moved to step out of the pit at the other side and walked her way up to the raised wooden platform a few feet away.
When she stood on the platform, she waited. We locked eyes again, we both knew what was coming.
A large male made his way through the silent crowd and shouted. “I will not kneel for a Fae”
She smiled before breaking eye contact with me.
Clearing her expression, she leapt from the stage and ran up to the male and slit his throat wide open. His blood sprayed all over her as she snapped her fingers and her clothes disappeared. Making her way back up to the stage naked, she stood in front of the crowd.
Letting them absorb her body covered in scars much more easily discernable than a normal Howelltie, she cleared her throat, using her creation magic to blast her voice out above the crowd and through the camp.
“I ask none to kneel before me. I ask only that you follow. There is war coming, and I want to win. I care not for which side is righteous. I am Howelltie. Might makes right!”
She yelled clearly, she was rewarded with silence. A good start.
She began to pace slowly. “I have earned my scars, they whipped me for four days instead of one. My wounds took weeks instead of days to heal. In school, I spent my days being beaten to a pulp instead of in the classroom and I still remained at the top of my class. When I was thirteen I was raped by my instructor and a peer.”
She turned and paced the other way “When I became strong, I went back and killed those who had hurt me. I am Howelltie.”
“I have fought my way up through your ranks. I have bathed in the blood of all who stood before me.”
She stood raising her chin high for a moment looking to the sky.
She looked down at me then through the crowd and yelled.
“I have fucked. I have fought. I AM FIRE” she finished, roaring the last words.
A monstrous firedrake erupted from her chest. Her magic made manifest. It flew into the air with a spray of fire. The crowd gasped. She pounded her fist against her chest and screamed. “I AM HOWELLTIE”
I was blown away. I had no idea that she would or even could do that.
It made the perfect statement.
There was a moment of silence when all that moved was her chest heaving and her dragon soaring. Then the crowd erupted into cheers and screams, her face burst into a wicked grin.
The dragon landed down among the Howelltie and some of the braver mercenaries reached to pet it. It was friendly to them. It felt a kindred spirit I supposed to myself. Its eyes gleamed with a silver like her own, its belly scales were also the same silver. I knew it was the silver of the Tundra, anyone else looking at the colour would assume it was to match her eyes.
The rest of the drake’s scales were a molten orange flame, very similar to the liquid crimson of Howelltie eyes.
I locked eyes with her again and grinned brightly, a rare showing, but one that was necessary.
She had done it.
I went to her and pulled her into my arms kissing her. “Sierade Gwaynten. Leader of the largest Howelltie Mercenary-Army. Commander of the Rustlavayne”
She laughed, the childlike glee of the sound a little alarming coming from her blood-soaked form.
“By the Tundra Sylek, can you believe it?” she breathed.
I shook my head.
“No, Siera, the Tundra did not do this. You did.”
She turned away from me and looked out over the crowd now gathering around to see her dragon, it was showing off playfully. The news was travelling through the camp and the Howelltie were all gathering. Music was struck up through the magic boxes and there was dancing and laughter, the alcohol was brought out.
I turned to her. Her eyes had narrowed watching her soldiers.
“I am going train these soldiers how to properly use their magic. How to honour their fire-bearing heritage. They are going to truly become a unit, not just an army” she looked up at me
I said nothing. I did not need to, I knew she would do it.
“Then, we will need a war.” She muttered.
✽✽✽
Sierade
I watched as five males and three females entered my tent and seated themselves around the wooden table in the centre of my war room.
My tent was comfortable, many thick rugs and tapestries lined the walls keeping out the cold. It was well-lit and felt less like a tent and more like a comfortable reading room in a stone castle.
The eight Howelltie warriors each were in charge of commanding two thousand soldiers. Sixteen thousand merc’s were now mine.
When they had all seated themselves, I did too.
I looked at each of them, I did not know their names.
“I would know each of your names, I would know how many fire users, foot soldiers, and psychic users each of your legions has.” I said.
I stared at the female seated directly next to me. She looked surprised at the immediate attention, she was beautiful with her elegant features and perfect body.
“I am Rislin, my legion includes eighteen hundred foot soldiers, many of whom use fire magic.” I raised my brow. She stuttered “Twelve hundred of the eighteen hundred have varying strengths of fire magic. I have one hundred who are very powerful in psychic.”
I nodded
The next male had a deep husky voice. “I am Erthuy, my legion is nineteen hundred physical soldiers, I believe a number close to fifteen hundred have fire magic of varying degrees
. I have fifty very strong psychics and fifty very strong fire users.”
I nodded, we moved around the table and I heard a similar story from each. Some legions were very strong in magic and weaker in foot soldiers, some legions had absolutely no psychic users.
I was counting up at the end.
“We need to balance those numbers out as much as we can.”
I did some quick math, looking down at the papers I had taken notes on during the reports of the unit commanders.
“Okay, we are going to arrange each legion so that there are one hundred psychic wielders, one hundred fire and psychic wielders - these are to be the weakest physically. There will be two hundred strong fire wielders and one thousand physical soldiers with fire magic. That leaves approximately six hundred physical soldiers. We must learn to control our magic in a more beneficial way.”
I got hesitant nods from each of the leaders in turn.
“Each legion is going to be split into ten units. Those units will each include: Ten psychic, ten fire and psychic, twenty fire, one hundred fire and physical, and sixty physical. I want at least one very gifted psychic and six very gifted fire per unit.”
The leaders were looking at each other now and I raised my eyebrows waiting for them to argue.
They said nothing.
“The strongest psychic will be shielding the entire force of fire users in their unit. The second strongest will be offensively searching out the opposing armies’ psychics and taking out their psychic barriers with the help of the other four psychic users, once taken out, they will be open to manipulation, sending through illusions. The other four psychic users will be sending out illusions of mass confusion.”
“The fire users will be purely defense. All of them. They will be building walls, and shields, of fire. Any army fighting against Howelltie will be looking to have water users to take out our fire, so our flame shields must be strong. Impenetrable.”
“Half of the fire and physical will be using flame as an offense. I will be training them how to create physical manifestations of their magic like my dragon, so that they can fight independently of them. That is dangerous magic and only the strong soldiers can do it.”
“Our physical soldiers training as of current should be sufficient, as long as they all know how to use a bow. If they do not know how to use a bow, they should not be in my army.”
When I had finished speaking, I noticed that a few had taken notes of all I had spoken. I was pleased.
They all stared at me.
“Any questions?” I asked.
One of the males spoke, I squinted trying to remember what he had called himself as he spoke. I couldn’t.
“I think that the idea to teach physical manifestations will be a great asset to our armies. Is there a way to create physical manifestations with psychic magic?”
I knew that creating my dragon had been as simple as willing it into existence, that the size of the creature depended on the amount of magic you poured into the manifestation. If the dragon was slain that simply meant that your power was drained by the amount you had poured into it.
“I will discuss with the psychics to see if it is possible.” I said.
Rislin spoke up, I remembered her name and I wondered why, I hadn’t remembered any of the others.
Shaking my head, I smiled. She was Sylek’s lover. She was lovely, and it was not like I hadn’t taken any other lovers. There were times when we would go years without seeing one another. We had huge ambitions.
We worked hard.
I smiled at her, willing her to see my good-natured feeling towards her.
She smiled tentatively back. “What are the physically weak fire and magic users in each unit for? And what are the other half of the fire magic and physical soldiers doing while the others are creating physical manifestations?”
I nodded, pleased that she had been paying enough attention that she noted the part of my plan I had yet to explain. I knew that I had bombarded the unit leaders with a lot of information. I knew it was unnecessary to have done so at this point, but I wanted to choose my second in command and this was my first test. “Yes. The other half of the fire and physical soldiers will be hoarding their reserves and will either set them on defense or offense as the battle calls for.”
She nodded, taking notes. I saw that a few more of them had now started taking notes, now realizing that we truly were making decisions that they would have to act on. “The psychic and fire users who are weak physically will be, to put it bluntly, power reserves for either our psychic or our fire to siphon as determined by the individual battle.”
I had all of them staring at me, frozen.
“Siphoning is considered a last resort, not a battle plan.” One of the Howelltie males spoke up.
“I don’t understand why. It is an easy way to double our power, especially if we have Howelltie who are available and yet may be cannon fodder otherwise.” I got more silence.
I stood pacing. “Ideally, it would be amazing to get more of them. Those who have magic, but possibly are not trained to use it for battle: our cooks for instance. They don’t even have to be on the battlefield for us to use their power; obviously, we would need to be careful. But can you imagine how strong we could be if we found weak Howelltie to add to our ranks just to siphon the magic from them as needed. Our magic users could last so much longer. We would never have to worry about limiting our magic use.”
I was getting a few nods here and there now. Some shining eyes, they could see it too, the potential power.
I was right, and they knew it.
Stopping to face them I waved them to stand “We are going to need to start honing skills right away. Look into the siphoning, find out how much training your soldiers have. It is an overwhelming experience and it will be a challenge, but we need it to become second nature to our soldiers. I want them to be able to fight as well as they do normally while they are siphoning.”
I nodded my head to the door and they all filed out.
Running my hands through my hair, I cursed quietly.
“There is much to be done” I whispered to myself.
✽✽✽
Gaelen
Year 10,252 AC
I walked through the door into Elliot’s study, the large, library-esque room in which he did much of his work for the queen and for his compound.
The study was a lesson in history, it was full of ancient texts and documents; it had many spells hidden within its walls. I looked around the dimly-lit room fondly.
I found Elliot with his head in his hands looking down at the papers on his desk miserably, his blond hair brushing the table lightly.
“Have you seen her latest brilliant moves?” He growled lightly.
“No.” I replied.
He stood up with a disgusted scoff pushing the papers away from himself, sending a glass half full of whiskey flying off the side of the desk. I snapped my fingers and it disappeared from mid-air, liquid and all.
Moving around the side of the desk, my eyes widened as I took in the information.
“She wants to take away Elfin rights to travel through Faery? She can’t do that!” I said “The laws of Faery themselves may not be altered, they have Fae blood. The lands of Faery do not belong to the queen, they belong to any with Fae blood.”
He growled across the room. “She intends to try.”
I sighed. “With Elfin and Howelltie still sitting on the council there is no way that will ever pass.”
He stopped pacing, turned, and pointed “turn to the next one.”
I flipped a few pages and sat back in my chair.
“She is trying to have any creature without creation magic removed from their council seat?”
Elliot nodded gravely, “That only leaves Nephilim and Fae”
“War is inevitable. Even if these laws do not get passed, the Elfin and the Howelltie will not take these insults lightly.” I muttered.
I ran my fingers through my hair. Rea
lising I was now sitting in the same position Elliot had been in when I entered, I stood and started pacing.
“How are we to combat this, Elliot?”
He sighed, “I think she is going mad. I am not sure there is anything we can do to stop it.”
I nodded and moved to look out the window.
