Amy bellowed as she charged; her sword shone as it caught the light fleeting between the tree-branches. The dryads and the warriors of the Rose sprang to action, swords drawn, spears readied, crying out with alarm as one of the rebels fell with an arrow in the eye.
More dryads were pouring out of the central holdfast, lining the walkways. Not as many as she would have expected, for a pretender queen waging a civil war – under the ocean the poorest coral outlaw would have been ashamed to boast of a following so small as Amy could see above her – but enough. Still, they were for Michael to deal with, and though she might pray for his success Amy could not help him in that fight. All she could do was win her own battle, and destroy these sentries and the rebel allies down below. And that she would do superbly.
An arrow glanced off her armour, and Amy laughed aloud as she closed the distance with her enemies. “Niccolo! Niccolo and Seafire!” The sight of the trees reaching towards the sky made her remember a time when she had been trapped in a watchtower with Undine raiders on the outside, and she added their battle cry to her own. “Who dare? Who dare meddle with me?”
A trio of fighters of the Crimson Rose looked as though they might meddle with her, but a stream of bolts of brilliant white shot over Amy’s shoulder to explode amongst them in a shower that engulfed them, blasting them hither and thither like fish when a volcano burst.
Nice of you to finally join us, Prince Jason, Amy thought as her feet carried her over the ground and closer and closer to Meinir’s holdfast.
There were eight Crimson Rose warriors left on the ground, together with four dryads – three, after Fiannuala shot another one just as Amy counted him – and they cast their spears at her as she came on. As she hunched down and let them skitter harmlessly off her armour, Amy reflected that they would have been better served by saving their spears for the close work.
Five of her enemies were gladiators, two of them helenians with short, curved swords and small square shields, one prolixine, an argonian and one a fisherman with a trident and net. The other three Coronim were garbed as hoplites in heavy bronze, with the symbol of the rose painted on their shields.
The hoplites readied themselves in wait for her, but the gladiators leapt forward to meet her, raising their own warcries to strike the clouds. But they were gladiators, and more used to seeking glory in personal combat than to fighting together as comrades in arms, and soon they had spread themselves out as each man raced to be the first to reach her and to strike her down.
As if any of you could. No matter if you have cast your humanity aside for the sake of strength, you’re still no match for a naiad! I am of the elderborn, the hammer of God, a warrior of the first age. You’ll need more than a little extra strength to best me!
The argonian reached her first, thrusting his spear down towards her like the hero out of some old story. But he would have had to be Gabriel reborn to have had a chance against her head on, and he wasn’t strong enough, strong though he was, nor swift enough, fast though he was. Amy twisted like an eel as he drove his ash spear hard against her, and the iron tip splintered on the segments of her paudron. Amy spun, turning like a whirlpool, and the argonian was carried past her by the momentum of his own charge. He looked back, eyes wide, hand fumbling for his short-sword, but it was too late. Amy roared as she slammed Magnus Alba into his back, splintering his bronze cuirass and staining her blade with blood as her enemy fell forwards.
Amy vaguely noticed that Michael, Fiannuala and Wyrrin had gone forwards, and she wished them luck, but then the helenians were on her and she had no thoughts to spare for any battle but her own.
The two helenians came at her next. One was wild, eyes bloodshot, baring his teeth at her like a dog, slashing wildly with a sword so short it was almost a knife. The other was more cautious, holding back, his small shield held before him as he studied her with eyes the colour of a stormy cloud.
Wild or not, the first man was strong, his blows ringing on Magnus Alba as she blocked his clumsy swings, his heavy slashing strokes. The second struck while she was focussed on the first, her sword up to block a downward swing, her arms up, that wretched weak point under her armpits exposed.
And he might actually have the strength to get through my mail!
The cautious man was smiling in anticipation when a trio of magical arrows slammed into him from the side, blasting him backwards. His body bounced across the ground, his manica clattering, his sword and shield flying in different directions. The other helenian gasped in shock, and Amy pushed against him with all her might, sending him staggering backwards. She raised her sword up and with a great shout brought it down upon him. Her opponent raised his shield, but she clove straight through it and his hand as well. She finished him before he could feel too much pain.
Amy turned around, to see the runes on Jason’s staff glowing brightly. “Thanks a lot!”
Jason nodded. “You’re still a bloodthirsty brute, though.”
Amy waved dismissively as she turned her back on him and put her face once more towards the foe. Only two remained, both Rose gladiators. The dryads on the ground had all been slain, and even now Amy could hear fighting in the trees up above.
Good luck Michael, and Fiannuala. Turo guard you.
Amy faced her surviving foes, the prolixine and the fisherman. She pointed Magnus Alba at them. “Now then, will it be one at a time or both together?”
“I think I’ll go first,” the prolixine announced, drawing his swords. He was an older man, his dark hair streaked with grey, but he had left his tunic off in order to display the impressive muscles which he still possessed. He drew his swords – he fought with identical spathae – and advanced a few paces before he began to circle around her. “I must say, ever since Davidheyr I was hoping that I’d get a chance to fight you. Bringing down a naiad would set a nice cap on my career.”
“Your career as a rebel, or as a gladiator?”
“Both, I suppose, but it was as a gladiator that I was thinking,” he said. “You know, if you keep your nose clean and your head down, then when the Empire sets you free it gives you a wooden sword. Personally, I’d rather have your sword. I might even be strong enough to lift it now.”
Amy growled. “This sword is not for the likes of those who would treat it as a prize.” Magnus Alba had been forged for Niccolo himself by the finest fire drake smiths in Ferro, wrought about with spells the like of which she could not comprehend. When Niccolo had fallen on the Field of Shattered Hopes, the victorious humans had loaded body, sword and armour all upon a boat and sent them out to sea, so that God and the ocean could receive them once again. Obviously the Crimson Rose had no intention of displaying such nobility.
“Really?” the broadlander purred. “Once you’re dead you won’t have much of a say!”
He sprang at her swift as the wind, his blade streaking forwards, pressing her backwards.
“If you’re relying on your sorcerer to save you, I’d say he’s a little busy now,” the broadlander snarled, and Amy saw a flash of light from the parapet above and guessed that Jason was now fighting with another sorcerer.
“I don’t need his help to kill a rebel,” Amy snarled back at him.
“Oh, really?” the broadlander drove at her hard, the point of his sword lancing towards her neck. Amy’s gorget held the blow, but she heard it crack and prayed that he hadn’t heard it too.
It was just like when she had sparred with Michael: he was faster than she was, too fast to be sure of parrying his strokes; but she was armoured better than any warrior in Pelarius, and he couldn’t keep up that speed for very long before it started to tire him out.
Amy retreated, hunching in on herself like a mollusc presenting its spines to a hungry fish, letting his blows hammer upon the plates of her armour. The wind struck the mountain with blows like hammers, but the mountain had the endurance to still be standing when the wind was spent. All she had to do was keep him away from her vulnerable spots.
“Y
ou have impressive armour,” the broadlander said as he hammered at her back plate. Amy could hear it cracking, but she knew that it would take even a super-strong man a long time to turn a crack into a break. She turned to present her front to him, if he got behind her and decided to strike at her knee joints she would be in trouble.
“More impressive than your swords,” Amy replied as she turned to keep her opponent in view.
“Oh, certainly,” he said. “But there’s something you’ve forgotten.”
“What’s that?”
“The Crimson Rose doesn’t fight fairly, now!”
And the fisherman, whom Amy had forgotten, struck, wrapping his weighted net around her legs and hauling backwards. Amy cried out as she toppled to the ground like a fallen tree, slamming into the earth with a crash. Her back ached from the force of the impact, and that pain cost her the moment she might have had before the two rebels pinned down her arms and kicked her sword away.
They really were strong. Amy tried to push up against them and could barely make any headway. They loomed over her, a leer on the sharp features of the fisherman while the broadlander’s face was passive, with only the slightest flicker of contempt. He raised one sword, and Amy realised that he meant to stab her through the eye-slit in her helmet.
There was a high-pitched chittering sound, and the fisherman howled in pain and leapt backwards, flailing his leg as Char sank his teeth into him.
Amy didn’t waste her chance. With her free hand she grabbed the ankle of the broadlander hard enough to shatter it and threw him off of her and to the ground. She fell on him like a shark, her fists descending once, twice, three times before it was clear there was nothing living inside what remained of his head. She ripped the net in half with her hands and recovered her sword just as Char let go of the fisherman’s leg. The pain of the bite was nothing compared to what he felt as Amy cut him in half.
Amy let out a deep breath as she looked down at the pygmy salamander. “Thank you.”
Char cocked his head and squeaked contentedly.
She turned to face the three Coronim hoplites, their shields locked and their faces hidden by their crested helmets.
Amy sighed. “This isn’t nearly as much fun when you’re on your own.”
Char chirruped.
“Right, I suppose you’re here aren’t you,” Amy said. “Come on then, you’ll have to do.”
"Stratos, Lord of Lightning, and Thanates, Mistress of the Air, hear my call," Jason incanted as the runes on his staff glowed. "Thirteen arrows of light!"
The arrows fired from the tip of his staff in a blaze of white light, in two curving arcs towards the dryad sorceress who had appeared on the parapet and begun firing down at him. They looped around the warriors on the balcony, now heavily engaged with Michael and Fiannuala, to strike at the dryad from two sides.
The dryad sorceress laughed, "I conjure in the name of Thanates, Queen of the Skies, shield me with your radiance!" She spun her staff around and Jason's arrows exploded brightly but harmlessly upon her shield.
Jason was impressed. He couldn't create shields nearly half so strong.
The dryad stood at the parapet ledge, her long staff - it was a good foot taller than she was - raised over her head. Her blue eyes stared down at him imperiously, and the sunlight through the gaps in the canopy glittered off her array of amber ornament. Jason, meanwhile, stood at the edge of the trees, clad in his increasingly tattered coat, his shepherd's crook held before him. Tullia hung back, unable to intervene in this contest of sorcery.
"Arus, Lord of Fire, let your anger blaze through me," the dryad cried. "One hundred and eight blooming flowers of fire!"
A mass of fireballs, each barely the size of a child's fist yet strong enough to burn right through flesh, flew out of the speartip in a great torrent.
Jason dropped to his knees, planting his staff in the ground, "Thanates, harden the air and shield me with your touch!"
The shield came up just in time, and the fire-flowers struck it in a series of crashing hammerblows. Through his connection to the shield Jason could feel each blow as a pulse through his body, could feel the cracks appearing in it.
The dryad laughed, "Is that the best you can do, little squirrel?"
If the insult was intended to provoke him to rash anger, it did not work. Jason was not Michael or Amy, to stand upon his pride and take offence at every slight. He had spent his life being slighted by those for whose opinion he cared not a jot, and he had great experience in letting these things slide off him.
Besides, there were bigger problems to worry about than his ego.
They had done well so far, with Amy having just about managed to dispatch the Crimson Rose warriors, while Michael's group had gotten up into the trees. But the dryad warriors up there were hurling themselves against the attackers with such ferocity that Jason was worried that the assault would stall, and Amy was starting to look tired. Even the remaining Rose warriors might overcome her.
Jason glanced behind him, to where Tullia waited. She was their only unengaged and fresh warrior, their only reserve, in martial parlance. And he knew better than anyone how good she was, how swift, how skilled. If he sent her to aid Amy, or to get the assault moving up above, she could well turn the tide.
Of course, he would be left defenceless, but she could not exactly protect him now either.
Jason frowned. "Tullia," he said. "I want you to-"
Whatever he might have said was lost as a dozen dryads burst out of the trees, spears out, whooping and yelling as they came for him.
And then Tullia was between he and they, her fists blazing with lightning.
"Face to the front, Your Highness," Tullia snapped. "I will defend you here, but you must defend yourself from the magic before us, for I fear I cannot aid you there."
Another man might have hesitated to do as she bid, another man might have felt an itch in his back as he turned around with so many foes behind him. But Jason did as he was bid to do without a trace of fear, for Tullia Athenaeum guarded him, and while she lived he had no fear at all for his safety.
He just wished he had the same confidence in the outcome of his own duel.
Lightning sparked at Tullia's fingertips as she danced across the grass, barely leaving an impression on the blades. Magic shot from her palms to strike the dryads across their bodies, rippling up and down their green or yellow skin, lashing at them as they howled in agony before dropping to the ground.
She guessed that they were some scouting party, returning to their camp and stumbling upon the battle, and at once she cursed their misfortune and was glad of it. It put her in difficulties, but it would make the task of Michael and his party easier. And she would win. She had no doubt of it, as she produced a knife from up her sleeve and opened a dryad's throat with it. She tossed another dagger into the eye of a warrior who was trying to get around her and strike at His Highness.
"Your fight is with me," Tullia growled, blasting a dryad backwards with lightning from her left hand. "Or are you so afraid of a human maid that you will look around for easier pickings?" If she had been back in Eternal Pantheia, her superiors would have had fits to hear her speaking with such pride, such bravado. But it seemed that travel had loosened her inhibitions, although she could not blame her attitude on the bad influence of Michael or Amy. She had always been proud, she had just hidden it well.
A tall dryad with reddening skin leapt at her, but Tullia pirouetted around him and drove her right palm into the small of his back, lightning erupting up and down his body until he died. She drove a third knife into the belly of another warrior. No, she felt no misgivings. She could win this battle. If only she could be as confident in the duel she could not influence.
As she danced a bloody swathe through her enemies Tullia prayed to Silwa, goddess of victory, and Beltor, god of war, that His Highness would be kept safe. They were a warrior's gods, not the gods of a mage, but then Tullia had always considered herself a warrior first a
nd foremost. A warrior with magic, to be sure, but a warrior nonetheless.
Beltor and Silwa grant them victory this day.
Vines leapt up from the ground to grab at her, but Tullia leapt away from them swift as a deer, lightning blasting out her hands towards the dryad who stood, without weapons, hands raised towards her. If he was not conjuring wood magic then she was no mage at all.
More vines rose up from out of the soil to block her lightning, and before Tullia could fire again she was distracted by an attack from behind her. By the time she had slain that foe, the wood mage was conjuring more vines from under the grass and down out of the trees to ensnare her.
Tullia scowled, drawing her two remaining knives and slashing at the vines as they snaked towards her. All the other dryads were dead, slain by her hand, but this mage who yet lived on showed no unease at the death of his comrades as he advanced upon her, conjuring up ever more vines to grab at her. There was a manic grin on his face as he kept on coming, conjuring more and more.
Tullia slashed at them again and again and again, slicing through vines until her breath began to run ragged, retreating in a circle, trying to avoid being driven too far from His Highness. But she was being driven, like cattle, and this wood mage was the herdsman.
And then he caught her, his vines eluding Tullia's slowing responses to grab her by the ankles and the wrists, twisting her arms till the knives dropped from her hands, pinning her in place, grabbing her around the waist, curling tightly around her neck until they began to choke her. So tight...she couldn't breathe...and the pain.
Tullia bared her teeth in futile defiance as the wood mage advanced upon her. "A human maid indeed. What can you do without those eagle-swift hands of yours?"
This. Tullia thought, and she let her whole body explode with magic, lightning dancing across her whole body as it erupted out of her in all directions, flaying the face and body of the dryad mage. The dryad screamed, his vines seemed to scream as the lightning tore them apart, but Tullia screamed too as the magic she had called upon attacked her nearly as much as her foe. She was ordinarily immune to lightning, and to lightning magic. But magic was meant to be released in careful doses, while now she was discharging almost everything she had at once, through orifices that were never meant to channel magic, and it was ripping through her.
Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) Page 51
