by Jaxon Reed
The weapons sped upward toward her. The green globe flew down, passing them both. Then it turned, sped up and touched the lance’s handle, enveloping it with green fire that quickly spread up the shaft. The lance instantly burned to a crisp and disintegrated.
The metal tip and the cord binding the dagger were unharmed. But suddenly, there was no more lance with a spell to carry them. All three dropped toward the ground.
Mita took a deep breath, and sighed in relief. She watched as the dagger disappeared, dropping through the green canopy below.
DARKSTONE LANDED NEAR THE LANCERS. By now, the entire army had marched forward and they stood behind the front lines. With the exception of the captain and one other lancer, both of whom had died horribly in globes of green fire, there had been no other incidents. The men’s confidence had increased upon seeing Darkstone return.
He pointed dramatically toward the ramparts in the distance.
“Their wizards and battlemaidens have been eliminated. Victory is at hand! Onwards!”
The Emeraldian soldiers yelled their battle cry, and everyone rushed forward.
“HERE THEY COME, people! Pikers, ready!”
Trant had almost come to the conclusion that the villagers might not be needed so long as the battlemaidens and wizards fought for them. But he watched in dismay as the women were chased off by some sort of flying spear, and the wizards seemed to be enveloped in odd globes of energy where their command post used to be.
With no support, they were left to their own devices.
At least the metal men no longer threaten us, he thought to himself. And I’ve got Fret.
The little dwarf provided a wealth of information about battle planning. In all the simulations Greystone had provided him showing how to handle various scenarios at court and elsewhere, the wizard had neglected teaching the young prince much about leading battles.
He probably didn’t think I’d need to know much about it this soon.
Fortunately, Fret proved to be an exceptional teacher despite his comparatively young age.
“Tha’s right. Pikers in th’ trench, halberds behind th’ trench. Wha’ th’ pikers dinna kill, th’ halberds’ll get. Keep th’ arbelests in th’ far back t’ pick off any other survivors.”
Trant waved down at Tomlin and Altor in the trench with the pikers.
“Here they come!”
Tomlin looked up and saw the first riders cresting the ramparts.
“Steady! Steady, men!”
A heavy, thickset woman with short hair turned and glared at him. He recognized her as the inn’s serving wench.
“And women! Steady, everyone!”
A WAVE of lancers crested the ramparts and charged down the other side. Too late they realized a wall of pikes awaited them. Hundreds of villagers stood bracing and hunched over their weapons, points facing chest-level at the horses rushing forward.
The animals’ death screams filled the air as the points slammed home. Lancers tumbled out of their saddles and were stabbed repeatedly by pikers who missed their chance with the horses. Pointed pikes pierced the lancers’ leather armor, even with the clumsy and inexperienced efforts of the townsmen and women.
Tomlin and Altor shouted encouragement while stabbing three horses and two riders between them. They paused near each other, close enough to come almost face to face. Both grinned like little boys.
“Ay, Cap’n! They done tried to skewer me twice and this pixie glow prevented it!”
Tomlin nodded, mentally grateful for Oldstone’s magic. He said a quick prayer of thanks to the Creator.
The second wave rode over the ramparts, and this time the pikers were not as ready for them. Several went past ongoing melees, riding up and out of the trench and into the mass of halberds waiting for them.
Tomlin stabbed one rider in the back with his pike, just as two more rushed past him.
OUTSIDE THE TRENCH, a few with halberds tried to brace their weapons and skewer the horses like the pikers before them, but the shorter length of the handle made for clumsier work. Many of the lancers were able to toss aside several who tried that approach.
Stin stood beside Bartimo, and suddenly felt very inadequate with a lancer charging down on him. The halberd seemed small in comparison to the twenty-pace-long horse-charging heavy wooden lance aimed at him.
“Steady, Stin! Remember they can’t hurt us.”
Stin gulped, and found himself praying Bartimo was right.
He tried jumping to the left just before the lance tip hit his chest, but the rider anticipated it and shifted at the last second. Stin caught the full blow with the horse and rider behind it, and felt himself lifted off his feet and hurled backward from the impact.
While the horse galloped by, Bartimo swung the hook end of his halberd up toward the rider’s chest. He caught the rider’s arm and pulled down hard, dragging him out of the saddle.
Several steps away Stin stood up, dazed but unharmed thanks to the second skin. He picked up his halberd and raced over to help Bartimo hack and stab the fallen rider.
DARKSTONE CRESTED the ramparts and looked down into the long trench below, expecting to find several dead townsfolk. Instead, to his surprise he found mostly dead horses and riders. Other Emeraldian soldiers were being systematically, if not efficiently, slaughtered by halberds beyond the trench. Arbalests further back took care of stragglers breaking through.
A lancer struggled up to him, bleeding from his side where a pike had pierced his armor.
“They’ve got something protecting them, milord Wizard. They’re all coated in a golden light. Our lances can’t get through. Blades either. I tried!”
He collapsed next to the wizard in pain, holding his side while trying not to bleed out. Darkstone ignored him, and looked intently at the villagers fighting below.
“Second Skin of Sunlight. I should have expected this.”
“What’s that mean, milord? Can we not kill them while they glow?”
“Not as long as the sun shines you can’t.”
The lancer squirmed on the ground in pain and exhaustion.
“It’s a long time ’till dark. We’ll never make it.”
Darkstone heard the lancer’s defeat and fatigue in his voice. He agreed with the soldier, but he thought for a moment and had an idea.
“We’ll just have to speed darkness up a bit.”
He began to dance, casting a simple but powerful spell. Swirls of black smoke billowed up around him and stretched into the sky, shooting up a hundred paces high. They coalesced into a thick, dark cloud. It grew and grew as he danced, until it spread across the sky and blocked out the sun.
Darkstone stopped dancing and watched as the last wisps of smoke joined the cloud. Mentally he gauged the light level, wondering if it would be low enough. No direct rays of the sun pierced through his black cloud. The battlefield was covered in dim and diffused light, as if a strong thunderstorm were about to begin.
As he watched, one by one in the order in which they were cast the protective yellow layers around the townspeople winked out.
The wizard turned at the sound of soldiers marching up behind him. An infantry captain saluted him.
“The lancers have had some problems, Captain, but they’ve been taken care of. Time for you and your men to handle what’s left.”
The captain looked down at the lancer bleeding at Darkstone’s feet, who had passed out from his wounds. The captain smirked.
“The infantry always mops up for the horse boys, milord Wizard. We’ll take care of it from here.”
Several of the soldiers near him laughed in confidence and unsheathed their swords. Others carrying pikes shifted them into a frontward position.
The captain turned and waved a signal.
“Forward! Attack!”
Thousands of soldiers streamed over the ramparts and down into the trench, waving their weapons.
MITA FLEW BACK to the battlefield and gasped when she saw the giant black cloud blocking the
sun. She instantly understood what that would mean for the villagers’ protection.
She rushed toward the battle, looking to kill as many soldiers as possible. Then she jerked to a stop and turned toward the ramparts. Overseeing everything, to her surprise, was a wizard dressed in ragged clothes.
In all her battle simulations, the wizard remained hidden. But maybe because he expected her to be dead by now, this one had grown careless.
Darkstone turned as he noticed her black-clad form hovering in the dim sky. Even at that distance, without scopic vision, she could make out the look of astonishment on his face.
Mita smiled as she cast a Spell of Immobilization followed by two lightning strikes and a bolt of energy.
Darkstone felt stunned, not only by the immobilization spell but astonishment as well. His globe of protection absorbed the first lightning bolt, but he could feel the second one and he definitely felt the follow-up energy bolt.
Mentally he cast a spell negating the immobilization and streaked up into the sky on a column of fire and smoke, heading away from the battle.
How had the battlemaiden escaped the dagger? He would have to find out later. Darkstone dodged her bolts as he streaked away from the clearing with Mita in hot pursuit.
BARLEY STOOD BACK and watched as the infantry worked its way forward. He had stayed near halberds during the battle, but refused the offer of wielding one. They were much too large for him. Instead he opted to fight with his battle axe, the trusty family weapon handed down to him by his father, Wort. His father had received it from his father and though Barley was not much of a fighter, the weapon had proven more than adequate.
By his count, Barley had slain seventeen enemy soldiers. Some confusion in the earlier part of the battle, where he had flailed blindly for a while, may have resulted in a slightly higher body count. But he wasn’t sure, and seventeen was a number he could confidently state were slain by his own hand.
Now things grow a bit more desperate, he thought.
With Darkstone’s cloud blocking out the sun, their protective armor disappeared. He watched as the pikers in the trench were methodically slaughtered by Emeraldian foot soldiers.
Barley walked into the line of halberd-wielding villagers, and looked up at them. Nearby the man he recalled was named Beet glanced down at him, fear and desperation dancing in his eyes. He remembered the first time Beet and Altor saw him, and what their captain said about dwarves in a fight.
Time to trigger that memory, Barley thought.
“Steady, now! Dinna let their swords get near ye! We can take ’em!”
Confidence seemed to radiate from the little dwarf, spreading outward like a wave of enthusiasm. In one last boost of magic, he gifted those around him with a spell of bravado. All the villagers near him started to yell.
“Yeah! We can take ’em!”
“Let’s get those bastards!”
A line of Emeraldian soldiers came climbing out of the trench and rushed them.
FRET NOTICED soldiers running toward the halberders, and he saw his father in the thick of the fighting.
“Pa!”
He jumped down from Trant’s horse and ran toward the battle.
Fret took out his knife and jumped up five paces in the air, slicing a man in the throat. Before the body hit the ground he bounded off it and stabbed another in the eye. He kept moving, stabbing and slashing his way through soldier after soldier toward Barley.
BEET, Bartimo, and Stin fought with half a dozen other villagers near the dwarf. Stin decided the halberd proved to be somewhat advantageous against swords. It had a longer reach and if swordsmen couldn’t chop off his pole, he could keep them away.
Bartimo had worked out a system with Stin, although they did not have time to discuss it in the heat of battle. It just worked. They would approach a soldier and Stin engaged the man’s sword while Bartimo grabbed for his legs with the hook end of the halberd. Once the fellow fell to the ground, they both stabbed him with their points. So far they had killed six this way.
Beet raised his eyebrows in approval as they downed number seven, and he moved over to help dispatch the soldier.
Barley, meanwhile, jumped from soldier to soldier, hacking away at legs, faces, swords, shoulders, chests, and anything else he could find to flail with his axe. Mentally, he now figured himself responsible for at least twenty-four dead.
He jumped up at another soldier, and swung the axe midair, cutting the inferior sword in half. On the way down, he hacked with a sharp downward thrust and split open the man’s stomach. He landed to the side of the body, his axe and boots soaked in blood.
Twenty-five, he thought to himself.
One of the soldiers nearby turned, and stabbed him in the back.
He felt the blade go through his ribs, and watched it pop out in front dipped in red. The man pulled upward, and he felt bones snap as it sliced toward his heart.
Fret saw his father go down. He had fought to within twenty paces of Barley.
“Pa!”
Fret ran toward the swordsman, who had his back to him, jumped up and stabbed him in the neck. The soldier collapsed in surprise.
Fret reached down and held Barley as the older dwarf gasped for air, his lungs punctured.
“Pa! Stay still! We can get a healer. We can get a wizard. Don’t move, Pa!”
But the blood flowed quickly through the long gash in his back and front. Barley looked at his son, and reached up to touch the boy’s face.
“Take care o’ yer mother, lad.”
His hand fell, and his eyes rolled up to the top of his head. Barley son of Wort breathed his last.
ARTEREO’S FACSIMILE ran through the crowd, stabbing and slicing. Soldier after soldier fell to his blade. Before those around the fallen could gather their wits, he ran off to kill some more.
The final wave of Emeraldian infantry crested the ramparts and ran down into the trench. About the same time, Artereo ran through what remained of the halberds and reached the other edge.
A group of soldiers stopped abruptly, surprised someone with such impudence dared challenge them on the opposing lip of the trench. But as they gathered their wits, one of them whispered, “Artereo!”
Anyone hearing the songs and stories at inns and public houses knew of Artereo’s appearance. A short man with light brown skin, silver hair and goatee. The greatest sword fighter the world had ever known. Some may even have seen a portrait of him by the great Fulton. The educated among the soldiers might have read a more accurate account of his exploits than what was usually told around campfires. But regardless of where they had heard the stories, they all recognized his facsimile when they saw it.
He stood facing them, and brought his sword up straight in front of his face, in the traditional dueling salute.
“Shall we begin?”
He ran into the trench, and in a blur of motion with a series of footsteps and moves none of them had ever seen before, he slew five men in the space of one breath.
He paused as the last one fell, and held his sword up straight again. Now it glistened red, covered in blood.
He looked at the group of soldiers. Their mouths gaped open in astonishment.They turned and fled.
CHAPTER 17
Bellasondra held her breath and squeezed the arbalest’s trigger. The mechanism released with a click, and shot a bolt out thirty paces into the forehead of a soldier racing toward her.
She handed the weapon back to one of the wizard’s servants, and another servant handed her a loaded one. She aimed it at another soldier, held her breath and squeezed the trigger. She paused briefly to watch in satisfaction as blood spewed from the man’s head as he fell down to the ground yelling in agony.
She had no idea how many Emeraldian soldiers she was personally responsible for sending to the Creator. She stopped counting after ten. That had been a long time ago, it seemed. If she had to guess, she’d say somewhere between thirty-five and forty.
She looked over at Kirt, shootin
g his weapon next to her. He was not quite as true in his aim, and being shorter, the boy had missed several opportunities for head shots. But he showed determination, and as far as Bellasondra could tell he was getting better. She watched as a soldier collapsed from a bolt Kirt shot through his heart.
She smiled, and aimed for another soldier coming toward them. This time, she caught him in the eye. He went down screaming.
“We’re running low on bolts.”
She turned and looked for the person who said it. The butler looked back at her evenly and without emotion. Bellasondra had decided the servants were not quite human. They performed their tasks mechanically and with no feeling. Doubtless they were magical, somehow, either under a spell or . . . something. She decided to ask somebody who understood wizardry about it later. If they survived.
“How many do we have left?”
“What we’ve loaded presently is all that remains, milady.”
An icy chill ran through her veins as she turned back toward the battle and saw hundreds more soldiers clawing through the weakening line of halberds. Many villagers lay stricken on the field, and she couldn’t see signs of resistance at all in the trench.
She turned back to the butler.
“When the last have been shot, spread the word for everyone to run back to the gate. We’ll make a last stand there. Only a few can get through the portal at once, and we’ll have a chance to hold them off.”
“Splendid idea, milady. I’ll pass the word.”
THE BATTLEMAIDEN PROVED FAR MORE powerful than he would have guessed. She seemed to expect his every move, and no spell Darkstone cast seemed effective at stopping her.
He flew miles away from the battlefield, throwing up sudden walls of stone and dirt from the ground behind him. She flew through the dirt walls, and dodged the stones.
He called down flurries of lightning bolts and fireballs. She swerved and seemed to know where they’d strike before they hit.
