The Golden Shield of IBF

by Jerry Ahern; Sharon Ahern

  “But once we’re on the ground it’s up to us,” Garrison finished for her. “I know.”

  They were nearly to the cobblestoned surface of the courtyard, more Horde of Koth in view. The archers fired repeatedly, but the wind swept their arrows away. Garrison had an idea. “Mitan! When we land—when we are down—can you hold the windspell for a few eyeblinks, then release it?”

  “She can,” Swan answered for her, Swan’s voice terribly enfeebled sounding.

  “You can do it, Mitan!” Garrison called out.

  “I will!” Mitan answered.

  The ground rose to meet them, but the instant before their feet touched the cobblestones, Bre’Gaa twisted his body in the air and lunged, hurtling himself onto three Horde of Koth troopers, bowling them over.

  Gar’Ath leaped forward, sword flashing.

  Swan, her voice barely audible, whispered, “I release the wind.”

  “Mitan! Now! Take it!”

  The wind nearly died, then rose, Mitan controlling it again.

  Alan Garrison swept Swan up into his arms, his sword held uselessly in his right hand. Erg’Ran stumbled, but only to one knee, his peg leg slipping from beneath him.

  Mitan s control of the wind was, oddly, better for their purposes, the errant gusts making archery marksmanship even more difficult. As Bre’Gaa and Gar’Ath hacked their way forward, they brought down one archer, then another and another, then the last of those already into the courtyard.

  Two Horde of Koth troopers charged Garrison.

  The wind evaporated as Mitan shouted, “I release the wind!” In the next instant, her sword drawn, Mitan had interposed herself between Garrison and his two attackers. “Get her out of here, Champion!”

  “We’ll need horses.” Garrison ran as best he could, his own strength all but gone, his legs and arms feeling simultaneously limp, yet stiff and unbending. His eyes flickered right to left as he crossed the cobbled courtyard, cursing himself for not learning the outline of Barad’Il’Koth better before coming here, searching for anything that looked like stable doors.

  Near the courtyard’s farthest end his search ended.

  With the last of his energy, Garrison ran toward the spot, nearly collapsing as he neared the stable doors. When he looked back, Mitan had dispatched the two Horde of Koth she’d fought for him, and Erg’Ran was half the length of the courtyard back, heading for the stables as well.

  Garrison sagged to his knees, Swan still in his arms. He heard Erg’Ran’s voice shouting something, but couldn’t make it out. Blackness washed over him as he fell forward.

  “I was draining him of his life, wasn’t I? Just by touching him?”

  Erg’Ran looked at her and answered, “I’m afraid so, Enchantress.”

  Swan wanted to reach out to Al’An, but dared not. “How soon will—”

  “He should recover rapidly. He must. In eyeblinks, we must be gone.”

  Swan tried to stand, to go to Erg’Ran and help him as he saddled horses. She could not stand, yet. “I have no magic to give, uncle.”

  “Your magic is not the reason that we love you, Enchantress. Rest.”

  She drew her sword, managed to get to her knees. If her mother’s soldiers entered the stable, she would die fighting them, fighting for her lover, her uncle, her friends—the memory of her father. “Erg’Ran?”

  “Yes, Enchantress,” he huffed from behind her.

  “You believe that because I am half of the other realm that, if Al’An and I—”

  Her uncle mercifully interrupted her. “Speaking bluntly, Enchantress, not as your subject—which I will always be—but as your uncle, it is my belief that if you and your Champion become as one in love, because your seed is of his realm, you will possess magical power greater than your mother possesses, greater than even she can imagine possible.”

  “I did not want it to be this way. I love Al’An, uncle.”

  The voice Swan heard from beside her chilled her. “I know that you do. And if you’ll have me, I want you forever.” So quickly that she felt faint, Swan turned her head toward the voice. Al’An sat up from the stable floor where Erg’Ran had left him after dragging them inside. “I heard what you said, and what Erg’Ran said. I’ve wanted to be your lover since the moment I set eyes on you.” Al’An smiled that wonderful smile Swan so much loved. “It’s a rare opportunity, to save a world and have paradise in your arms while you do it.”

  “Al’An,” she sighed, almost touching him.

  He edged up to his knees. “Let me catch my strength a little,” Al’An implored, smiling again. Shakily, he rose to his feet. “I can help, Erg’Ran.”

  “Then by all means do so, Champion.”

  Swan glanced back. Four horses were already saddled. How she so longed for them to need seven mounts instead of six only. Tears filled her eyes again, but at least strength was returning to her. Through the crack between the stable doors, as she looked toward the courtyard again, she saw Mitan, Gar’Ath and Bre’Gaa, more than two score of the Horde at their heels as they ran. “Hurry!”

  “This is the last of the mounts, Enchantress!” Erg’Ran advised her.

  Al’An asked her, “Can you still light a fire?”

  “I think I have the magical energy for that,” Swan replied.

  “Good! Then once we’re mounted, I want you to light my cigarette.” She thought that this seemed an odd time to smoke. Al’An told Erg’Ran, “And I want you, as soon as you’re mounted, to get ready to shag the rest of these horses out those doors the moment I say so. Right?”

  “Aye, Champion! At your command, then.”

  The doors flew open, Mitan first, Bre’Gaa and Gar’Ath right behind her.

  “Mount up, guys! We’re getting out of here,” Al’An ordered, climbing into the saddle.

  Bre’Gaa helped Swan to her feet, lifted her as if she weighed nothing at all, placing her astride one of the six horses. The animal was dark brown with an almost black mane and tail. Swan freed her cloak from the saddle’s cantle, drawing the garment around her, cold in her weariness.

  Gar’Ath held Mitan’s mount’s bridle as she stepped up into the saddle, her long legs holding fast to the animal.

  “There are gates and a drawbridge,” Gar’Ath advised, his own lean frame swinging up into the saddle with perfect ease.

  “Good point,” Al’An announced. “There’s likely a gatekeeper?”

  “Aye, Champion, I would imagine so.”

  “We’ll find a way to make him cooperate. Trust me,” Al’An told him.

  Swan reined back on her mount. It was skittish, likely used to a greater weight than her own in its saddle.

  Al’An had a cigarette in his mouth. Without thinking, Swan lit it.

  “The rest of these horses—let’s shag ’em out of here before they get barbecued!” Al’An ordered.

  The concept of barbecue took an eyeblink or so to comprehend, but Swan suddenly realized why Al’An wanted the lit cigarette. Al’An’s pockets bulged with straw from the floor, and bales of straw and hay were stacked high along the far rear wall of the stone building and on either side. The structure itself might not burn, but inside it would become a raging inferno.

  Mitan swung low from her saddle, tugging the stall ropes open. Gar’Ath used the edge of his sword to sever more of the ropes, then its flat against the rumps of the animals as they started out. Erg’Ran, sword in hand, did the same, urging the animals through the open doors and into the courtyard.

  There were more than a hundred horses here, and Swan, barely able to stay astride, smote herself for her weakness, for being unable to help herd them through the stable entrance.

  Al’An took a long coil of rope from where it was racked on a peg protruding from a supporting column, then rode along the center of the stable, toward the far rear of the structure. Loosed horses stampeded wildly around him. Swan was barely able to restrain her own mount; its instinct was to follow the others of its kind.

  Her eyes turned back
to Al’An. He had reached the rear of the stable, but was barely discernible, the stable’s darkness and shadow consuming him.

  Then, suddenly, there was a bright light.

  A burning brand flew from Al’An’s right hand, into the center of the tallest stack of baled straw, near its base. Another flew into the stacked hay to Al’An’s right, then another into the hay at his left.

  There was a long, thin arc of orange light as Al’An’s cigarette snapped from his fingers, into the straw near his horse’s feet. “Let’s get out of here!” Al’An commanded.

  Horses streaked past her in a stream which seemed unending, their eyes wild with fear of the flames, nostrils flared against the already foul-smelling air. Erg’Ran, Gar’Ath and Mitan, riding in their midst, urged the creatures onward, shouting at them, waving their swords in the air.

  “I will stay beside you, lady,” Bre’Gaa told her. “If you should perchance fall from your mount, be assured that I will catch you, Enchantress.”

  “Noble Captain, I am in your debt,” Swan responded.

  “Then, let us away, Enchantress!” Bre’Gaa slapped the flat of his sword against her horse s rump and the beast beneath her vaulted forward.

  Smoke already wafted along the length of the stable, the fire seeking the greater volume of air at the open doors. Her eyes starting to tear from the smoke, Swan clutched the reins and a knot of her horse’s mane in her hand. Bending low over the animal’s neck, she struck the flat of her sword as Bre’Gaa had done, her mount picking up speed, racing into the courtyard.

  Ahead of her ran almost a hundred horses, the cacophonous din of their hooves against the cobblestones pulsing inside her head, thrumming maddeningly.

  Swan looked back. Al’An rode hard, his sword raised high, his ebon mount, galloping toward the doorway, its hooves chucking great clods of debris from the stable floor.

  “The gates are this way!” Erg’Ran shouted, wheeling his horse, the animal rearing magnificently. Despite Erg’Ran’s peg leg and advancing age, her uncle and mentor sat a horse wonderfully and still cut a marvelous figure in the saddle.

  The gates and the drawbridge—it was raised—lay to the far end of the courtyard. More than two score Horde of Koth, phalanx-like, interposed themselves between the stable and the sealed gap in the castle wall. As Al’An’s mount cleared the stable doors, Swan noticed for the first time that something was being dragged behind it, at the end of a rope.

  Al’An’s horse reined back, only half-reared, hind legs deeply bent, its off-front leg fully extended, the other raised, pawing at the air. Al’An shouted to Swan, “Can you light this?” He gestured behind him with his sword.

  Swan’s eyes scanned along the length of rope to its end. There was a bale of hay knotted there. Swan lit the hay, sagging a little in her saddle as she did so from the use of magical energy. Al’An saluted her with his sword, dug in his heels and the black mare under him sprang forward. The bale of hay spewed burning sparks everywhere in its wake, the already startled horses whinnying with fear and galloping madly in all directions across the courtyard. Most of the animals stormed toward the Horde of Koth’s line.

  Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath were the first to come against the foemen. With Erg’Ran’s and Gar’Ath’s swords hacking and slashing from saddle height, the Horde of Koth gave way before the onslaught of tempered steel in determined hands. Their disorganized retreat quickly transformed into a startled rout. They ran in obvious panic from the steel-shod hooves of the terrified horses storming toward them.

  Low over his horse’s mane, his sword held straight-armed before him like a lance, Al’An tore through the melee, toward the raised drawbridge. An officer in the Horde, brave but foolish, ran toward Al’An, intercepting him. As the officer slashed with his sword, Al’An s blade described a long, graceful arc. Steel met flesh. The Horde officer’s hand and the sword it held flew from his arm in a great spray of blood. Al’An charged onward.

  Al’An reached the gate, reining back, his horse skidding and nearly falling to the cobblestone. Alan sprang from the saddle, with a single motion of his sword severing the rope with which he’d dragged the burning hay.

  Arrows began to rain down from windows and niches interspersed along the height of the keep. Captain Bre’Gaa, riding beside Swan, shouted to her, “We must be gone from here! Soon, there will be no hope but to stand our ground and fight to the death!”

  Far to their right, Mitan, still ahorse, returned fire with her longbow.

  Swan looked from Captain Bre’Gaa to Al’An. Gar’Ath and Erg’Ran were nearing him at the raised drawbridge. Al’An’s mount began to veer off, but Gar’Ath intercepted it, catching its reins. Al’An, sword sheathed, was climbing the wall along the bar studded ladder toward the gatekeepers niche, the ladder set into the wall as the watchman’s only access to his nook. Peering down from the stall, Swan saw the man, and as he looked he brought a crossbow to bear. “He will kill Al’An!” Swan virtually screamed to Captain Bre’Gaa.

  “Not this day, Enchantress!” Bre’Gaa drew his mount to an abrupt stop, nearly wrestling it into motionlessness. In an eyeblink, his bow was in his hands and he bent it to set the string. In the next eyeblink, he had an arrow nocked and fired.

  Swan’s eyes tracked the arrow, unconsciously second-sighting in flight, seeing the arrow in infinite detail, the black and grey pattern of its fletching, the grain of its shaft, the keen honing of its broad steel head. Swan blinked and drew in her breath as a scream when the arrow struck the gatekeeper. The arrow penetrated through the bridge of the man’s nose and continued into the right cheek below the eye and into the mouth.

  When she opened her eyes, she witnessed the gatekeeper tumbling forward from his niche, nearly striking Al’An with his body.

  “That is the way the Gle’Ur’Gya are taught to shoot as children, Enchantress! Ha!”

  And they were riding again, toward the drawbridge.

  Gar’Ath had drawn his bow, in preparation of assisting Al’An, Swan knew, but put it away. He fell to working his body against the great iron studded bar set across the gates, its weight clearly immense.

  Swan and her Gle’Ur’Gya shepherd reached the gates, Captain Bre’Gaa handing her the reins of his mount and saying, “If you would, lady.”

  Captain Bre’Gaa sprang from the saddle and was beside Gar’Ath in the next eyeblink. Effortlessly, it seemed, he set his enormous hands to the bar and shouldered it upward and out of its braces. As if the bar weighed nothing at all, Captain Bre’Gaa flung the bar into the courtyard. When Swan looked back, she saw that he had not wasted his strength. The bar had struck and bowled over three Horde of Koth swordsmen who had returned to the fight.

  Swan looked up, Al’An clambering from the dowel rungs and into the compartment lately left by the gatekeeper. Could Al’An discern the workings of the mechanism by means of which the drawbridge was raised and lowered?

  As Captain Bre’Gaa and Gar’Ath swung open the gates, there was an earsplitting crack, and the drawbridge began to fall. Mitan rode up, as the drawbridge crashed into the open position, the moat beyond the gates spanned at last.

  Gar’Ath snatched back his reins from Erg’Ran who held both his and Al’An’s mount in check, then vaulted into the saddle.

  When Swan looked back into the courtyard once more, Sword of Koth and Horde of Koth were pouring from within the keep itself and the barracks structures within the walls. Many of the errant horses were being taken in charge. Small knots of men were being rallied.

  Arrows struck into the gates, ricocheted harmlessly against the stone of the walls. One buried its head in Captain Bre’Gaa’s saddle. He tore it free as he remounted, then retook his reins. “We must flee, Enchantress! Ride now!”

  From above them, Al’An’s hands clinging to a rope, she heard Al’An cry out, “Stay near the drawbridge! I’ll need magic once more, Swan!”

  Feebly, Swan nodded to him. She knew what he had in mind.

  Captain Bre’Gaa virtually led her
horse, coaxing it onto the drawbridge. Mitan, Gar’Ath and Erg’Ran positioned themselves in the gate opening, steel ready.

  Swan looked up. Where was Al’An? She saw him again. “Oh!” Swan exclaimed. “No!” Al’An stood on the uppermost of the rungs just outside the niche, hands firmly grasping a rope. In an eyeblink, his body flew downward through the air, and Swan almost screamed. Al’An’s feet struck the wall, but he pushed himself away. He came against the wall again, then shinnied down the rope, jumping from it while still some distance from the ground. Al’An landed in a crouch, one hand touching the flagstones. Then he was up and running in an eyeblink.

  The next thing that Swan saw was something unlike anything she had ever seen before. Al’An angled his run toward the rear end of his horse and, as he neared it, he jumped, his hands to the horses rump. He sailed over his hands and into the saddle.

  Al’An looked at her with a big grin. “Buckaroo Fishman, the cowboy legend, escaped Geronimo and a renegade Apache war party down Bisbee, Arizona way using that mount. I’ll tell you the story, sometime. Let’s ride!”

  Onto the drawbridge, their horses’ hooves reverberated against the wooden boards. Al’An shouted to her, “When we’ve all gotten across, can you set the bridge afire?”

  “I think I can.”

  Al’An called out over his shoulder, “Gar’Ath! Mitan! Erg’Ran! Hurry!”

  Captain Bre’Gaa reined in beside her a short distance beyond the end of the drawbridge and Swan looked back. A score of the Horde were ahorse and charging across the courtyard, Gar’Ath, Mitan and Erg’Ran turning their horses onto the drawbridge and riding, death snapping at their heels.

  Hoofbeats thundered across the drawbridge, making Swan’s mount uneasy. Captain Bre’Gaa took its reins, held them fast.

  Erg’Ran was first across, Mitan and Gar’Ath, side by side, just behind him.

  “Not yet!” Al’An cautioned Swan.

  Three Horde of Koth horsemen, swords drawn, were on the drawbridge, three more behind them, another two behind the three. “Be ready, darling. Lots of flames, huh? Ready—now!”