The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Stand aside,” came the self-important voice of Sir Orisin, even as the barbarian with the maul jumped after Falon again, trying to finish the job.

  “Help!” Falon cried.

  “Saint George was a Raven!” bellowed the aging Raven Knight with the salt and pepper hair. “The Short-Mire; the Short Mire!”

  A barbarian’s axe clanged against the aging Raven Knight’s plate mail and broke in two, after which Sir Orisin followed through with a powerful blow with the flat of his blade dropped his foe with the crack of metal meeting bone.

  The Raven Knight pivoted, bringing his exceptionally wide broadsword around for a swipe at the man with the maul.

  “Saint Aife lives…in the Short-Mire!” Sir Orisin panted, and sparks flew as metal met stone as two strong men locked weapons. But while the two were locked in mortal combat, the rest of the Ravens who had come with the Knight didn’t stand idle. Feet pounded as men in rude peasant dress, armed with pitchforks—and, in one case, a large bronze axe—piled onto the two men who had encircled Ernest.

  Taking the chance while she had it, Falon snatched at her sword and made for her feet.

  In a glance, she took in the situation: the Raven peasants of her new fighting tail were keeping the two savages near Ernest busy, while the aging knight strained back and forth with his younger, heavily-built, and far-less-armored barbarian foe. The one that needed her help was clear, and pushing down the fear that threatened to rise at the knowledge that she still didn’t have access to her magic strength, she drew back her sword and hacked at the Ice Raider’s back.

  Her blade didn’t bite deep into the raider’s hide-covered back, but it did bite, proof positive that all the evenings of hard work she had put in on the butts, and sparring with Darius, had paid off.

  The wail from the barbarian was music to her ears—the sight of him being shoved back as he lost his grip on the maul, even more so.

  “A Raven in…in the…Short-Mire,” Sir Orisin wheezed between the great, billowing breaths he was drawing into his lungs. But in spite of his apparent exhaustion, he was still pushing the raider back with a powerful shoulder charge that sent the other man stumbling.

  Falon lunged, stabbing forward with perfect technique but when metal cut flesh and cracked against bone, it wasn’t everything she’d hoped. Weaponless her target might be, but the barbarian proved more than willing to trade his forearm for his life as he intercepted her killing blow with said limb.

  However, a quick step from Sir Orisin while the savage was distracted by the pain was followed by another blow from the broad, flat of his blade, and the raider fell like a tree axed down in the forest.

  Seeing the fate of their comrades—and now outnumbered—the two remaining Ice Raiders growled something to each other in that guttural language of theirs and took to their heels.

  “Get ’em, lads,” said one of the Raven peasant warriors, and the whole mess of them took off in pursuit of the running raiders.

  “Are you alright?” Falon asked with concern, when she went to step past Sir Orisin and noticed him swaying on his feet. She placed a hand on his arm to steady him, but he shrugged free of her grasp.

  “Quite fine, I assure thee,” he said his beard bristling at the mere suggestion. “Go and see to thy friend,” he said, shooing her off.

  Thankful for the words, yet strangely feeling shamed that she was leaving him, Falon went to check on her friends from East Wick.

  “Are you okay?” Falon asked with concern as she hurried over to Ernest, and a quick look showed that his right arm hung limply and the sleeve of his shirt was soaked in blood. He also had a several other cuts on his torso, yet he still managed to smile at her.

  “We were coming over to check on you when they broke past the sentries and caught us here,” Ernest said, right before his eyes rolled back up in his head.

  Falon’s eyes bulged. “Wench!” she screamed, looking around wildly.

  Sir Orisin stepped up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Boy, bind their wounds,” the Raven Knight said to the boy who had followed her into this battle with only a spear and his small clothes.

  Falon’s eyes cut over to the boy, and she saw the right side of his face was swelling.

  “Come,” Sir Orisin said, his deep voice a lifeline for her to cling to as she looked back and saw Duncan with a large cut to the meat of his thigh, and a head wound that was bleeding profusely.

  “But…” Falon protested weakly, unable to take her eyes off her fallen friends.

  “A gentleman must look to the benefit of all his men,” the Raven Knight said sternly. “The battle still rages and we must away from here.”

  Falon bit her lip until it bled then nodded reluctantly. “Let’s go,” she said, even though every word felt ripped from her chest. However, despite her brave words, it took Sir Orisin’s gauntleted hand upon her arm to pull her away.

  “Straighten thy shoulders, Squire; don’t let them see their leader squirm,” he advised her in a low, gravelly voice.

  Even though she didn’t know what good it would do, Falon dutifully followed instruction and lifted her shoulders. Strangely enough, she did start to feel better with her shoulders up, and thanks to the Raven Knight’s urging she found herself stalking quickly through camp.

  “At the trot and pile on,” came the most wonderful voice she could imagine hearing right at that moment, and she cleared the edge of her camp in time to see Darius and a score of men with spears fighting to relieve a pair of sentries who were fighting back to back. “The Horns!” he cried, invoking his Imperial rallying cry as was his fashion in the heat of battle.

  Sir Orisin clouted her on the shoulder and lifted his blade, which had been resting on his left shoulder, and took a firm grip with both hands.

  “For a Swan!” he shouted, building up to a foot charge slowly, but surely, in his heavy plate armor. “A-Raven for a Swan!”

  Falon blinked and then realized she was supposed to give some kind of battle cry too, although unlike before when her blood was up at the sight of her fallen friends, it just didn’t seem as important. However, as long as she was pretending to be her own brother, she had to uphold the duties and pride of her class.

  “Rankin!” she shouted, thrusting her sword in the air and then running forward.

  “It’s the Lieutenant, and he’s brought the whole ruddy army,” Darius declared triumphantly, “three cheers for the Lieutenant!”

  Falon almost stopped flat-footed and wide-eyed she sneaked a look over her shoulder. She saw a scattered group of about five men emerging from the tents come in her direction, with a few more appearing as she watched, but it was definitely nothing like an army…

  “Huzza!” exclaimed the men with Darius. “Huzza!” they repeated vigorously, pushing forward with renewed eagerness, causing the dozen or more barbarians in front of them to waver. “Huzza!” her warriors under Darius almost snarled, and a pair of barbarians in the rear broke and started to run away.

  Almost as if the two men running away had been a signal, a savage youth came running out of the dark with a spiked club. Sparks dripped from the metal sticking out of his club, and his eyes glowed blue in the night.

  “Mogrey’s!” he shouted, and Falon was surprised to recognize him. He was the very shaman’s apprentice they had locked horns with in the Gap. More boy than man, his scrawny frame belied his true strength—that of the magical energy shining through his blue eyes.

  Her spearmen wavered, and the cheering men of moments earlier saw a trio of unsteady warriors break from their back rank to flee from the barbarian magic wielder. “Magic! We must retreat,” they cried, stumbling away.

  “No retreat!” Falon croaked, and then repeated her call in a much louder voice, changing course and waving her sword around her head to get the attention of the man-child in barbarian furs and leather.

  The young shaman looked her way, and Falon could tell the moment recognition dawned. He remembered her from the time of the R
ed Bull—and apparently didn’t much care for what she had done to his master’s creation, as he changed course to intercept her.

  In the little time she had before they clashed, Falon called with all her might upon the magic but found only a sluggish serpent at her beck and call. It was nothing like the overactive creature that had been so eager to let loose its power during her last battle. One again she cursed Tulla, this time for wearing her out. First Smythe, and then Tulla, and between the two of them she didn’t think she’d gotten so much as two hours of sleep before the Ice Raiders attacked the camp.

  If they all hadn’t conspired against her maybe she’d be able to—

  Her foul-tempered musings were cut short by the arrival of the savage man-boy with the blue eyes, and unlike a more civilized opponent, the young shaman—almost disdaining his spiked club—leapt at her. The act was more akin to a savage beast of the forest than a man, as the boy raked with his fingers and snapped with his teeth, seeming to forget the club in his hands.

  Falon ducked and backed away, using her sword to ward off the crazed boy. Then the club came forward in a sideways attack she couldn’t simply dodge.

  Summoning the magic from her leg, she felt power flash through her limbs and she blocked with both hands with every expectation of knocking the boy back. To her shock and dismay, even with her magically-enhanced strength the young shaman powered through her defense, his blow only diverted a little bit toward the ground by her block.

  As the sparking, metal spike of his club drove into her upper thigh, it felt like a red-hot poker had speared her and Falon squealed, as much from surprise as pain. But it was a pain that only seemed to grow the longer that spike was inside her body.

  Pulling herself off the spike with a jerk, she stumbled back and away from the source of that awful, unnaturally deep pain.

  The youth bared his teeth, and for a moment the cockiness of a young man peered through his eyes. That cockiness was soon absorbed back into the savage demeanor the youth had displayed since the beginning of the fight, and the fact that he could so quickly switch between such moods was confidence-shaking to the young woman.

  “Stay back,” she commanded, interposing her blade.

  Of course, the youth—who couldn’t understand a word she was saying—paid her no mind.

  However, the moment he spent narrowing his eyes at her, as if wondering what she was up to, allowed her to regain something of her own mental balance and she realized she had nearly become as arrogant as any man. She had let her magic-infused strength start to do her fighting for her, instead of utilizing the careful deflections and smart swordplay which Darius had been teaching her to use when facing opponents that were bigger and stronger than her.

  It seems men aren’t the only ones to let being the stronger one in a fight go to their heads, she thought bitterly.

  It was a more focused and determined Falon who limped to the side, determined to fight ‘smart’ and skilled instead of strong and stupid.

  This time when the young shaman came at her with a swipe of the club, she called on the weakened magic inside her and calmly adjusted her position and slanted the edge of her blade to divert the attack. But even though his club had been turned, the youth wasn’t done yet. He reached out and raked the side of her shirt with his hands.

  Falon had been expecting nothing worse than getting hit with a fist, or thumped with a training spear, arched to the side in surprise as his deceptively simple attack struck home. The blue-eyed youth’s fingers cut through the cloth of her shirt like claws, not regular human fingers.

  But even as her jaw locked to hold back a cry, her sword was turning in her hand and scored a cut along the upper arm of the man-boy. It was nothing more than a glorified scratch, but Falon was heartened and the youth had been visibly startled.

  Falon grinned at him savagely, “Not so invulnerable now, are you?”

  Taking the meaning of her tone, if not her words, the young shaman’s face twisted and he jumped at her, gaining at least four impossible feet of air before coming down.

  Falon squawked, her wounded leg giving out as she tried to twist away. The youth landed on her, riding her to the ground with his fingers raking at her raised arms as they fell.

  “For the Short-Mire!” yelled a voice, followed by a dull thud and the boy collapsed atop her with his stomach falling flat onto her face.

  Momentarily suffocated, Falon kicked and clawed with her own hands until suddenly the dead weight on her was lifted off.

  “Thou called, Lieutenant?” Sir Orisin said with a satisfied look as he leaned heavily on his broadsword, the tip of which was planted firmly in the ground.

  Chapter 38: The Battle Lines are Drawn

  The camp was cleaned up and the men had all been seen by Chloe, the Healing Wench, who insisted on hanging out with Falon’s Band of Swans rather than with a group of men who could actually pay her something approaching what she was worth.

  All of this was done just in time for the Prince’s scouts—mainly the Swans’ own Foragers, who used to belong to Gearalt, as well as a few of the so-called ‘Fist of the North’s locals—to come running back to camp with word that several of the local barbarian tribes had banded together and were less than two hours away.

  “I’m so tired I can hardly see straight,” Falon confided in Darius.

  The Imperial looked at her and then reached for a small flask hanging on his belt. “Here, take a sip of this,” he suggested.

  Falon looked at the flask suspiciously; she didn’t care much for strong drink or hot teas most of the time, but she was too tired and worn down after a never ending night to make more than a token sound of protest.

  Despite her noise—made more to make sure he didn’t think that she was particularly prone to such things—she gave in to exhaustion. Taking off the cork, she took a cautious sip.

  Her face screwed up at the bitter taste, but moments later her eyes snapped wide open. She felt more awake than she normally would after a good night’s sleep!

  “Wow,” she wheezed, “what’s in this stuff!?”

  “Trade secret,” Darius said blandly.

  “I feel ready to take on a whole army of barbarian savages,” Falon confided with an eagerness she would have thought impossible mere seconds earlier.

  “Good,” he said cocking an eyebrow, “because that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing later on today.”

  Falon sucked in a breath to protest this; it simply wasn’t fair the way the enemy came at them while she was still tired and then she stopped. Her shoulders slumped. Why does my mind insist on cataloging the unfairness of everything, she wondered with resignation.

  She was upset and irritated with the Captain, and the Witch, for telling her off to the point of making her remember their stupid advice. But she was strangely grateful she hadn’t just made a fool of herself in front of Darius by voicing her feelings. It was really all quite irritating.

  “Why do you say that?” she finally asked. Already silently admitting to herself that if Darius said they were going to have a battle, he was probably right.

  “They tested us in the night, and not just the Swans but every other unit they could hit, keeping us awake and preventing us from getting much sleep,” Darius explained. “And now they’re set to arrive at the crack of high noon if they keep up the pace, which just so happens to be the very moment furthest from the power of the Moon…and thus any healing we might hope for.”

  “Rats,” Falon agreed, shoulders slumping again.

  “Take heart; it’s not as bad as all that,” Darius told her.

  Falon looked up hopefully.

  “For all the power of their magic, they fight as individuals even more than your countrymen in the Stag Lands,” he said with off-handed disdain. “And their armor and weapons leave much to be desired. I believe we have a good chance against even a slightly larger force of these Ice Raiders. They ought to stick to what they know best—living in the snow and raiding for scraps—
and leave large battles to the professionals.”

  Falon grinned at the compliment to her and her people.

  “Well, semi-professionals anyway,” the Imperial amended so thoughtfully that Falon’s smiled dropped.

  “How heavily outnumbered would we have to be before you’d get worried?” she asked.

  “With better leadership, I’d say double but with this lot,” he turned and look speculatively toward the Castle, “I wouldn’t want to face more than half again our number…and that might be tight.”

  Falon glared at him wanting with all her heart to defend her country and her Prince. But recent memory stayed her tongue, so she settled for a withering look and turned away with a sniff.

  **************************************************

  “There they come,” Darius observed.

  “At last!” Falon half-exclaimed, half-groaned. “We’ve been waiting in ranks here for hours.”

  “Yes, it would have been better to rest the men for as long as possible,” Darius agreed. “We should have been out here for only half as long but then that’s what you get with inexperienced leadership.”

  “We’ve already fought one battle—successfully, I will add—or have you forgotten that already?” Falon reminded him flatly, more than a little offended at the implied criticism and lack of regard for their war skills.

  “Do you know how many battles or large skirmishes a soldier of the Empire must have been in before he is considered an experienced soldier?” Darius asked absently, his head swiveling forward to take in the enemy army from one side of the snow-covered field to the other.

  Falon glared at him, but after asking the question he seemed to have temporarily forgotten she was there. Stomping her foot in frustration, Falon sighed. “How many?” she asked begrudgingly.

  “Half a dozen,” Darius replied still watching the enemy.

  “Half a dozen?” Falon repeated with surprise.

  “Yes,” Darius said, glancing over at her, “until he has at least six battles under his belt, a soldier in the Imperial Regiments is considered to be green.” He turned back to look at the assembled mass of the savage army, “I would think the same applies to your leadership.”