Jonah could just see Branson’s prone form lying on the ground through the tall grasses to his right. The outline of an identical black-lacquered foot-bow held against boots was the constant in the lazily waving world.
“Aim! Forty-two!” The order ripped across Jonah’s serene world.
The tight, almost wood-like cords of his leg muscles pushed up hard. His back and arms strained against the pull of the thick bowstring in his gloved hands. The jagged arrowhead pointed up at the sky at the new angle Jonah knew by instinct. An angle copied by the thousands of other foot-bowmen lying on the grass around him.
“VOLLEY!”
Thousands of bowstrings snapped in unison, and Jonah's black missile arced skywards to join its peers. His legs dropped smoothly to the ground with the weight of the foot-bow hanging from the leather stirrups on his feet. Each time, the release of that tension was a godsend.
But that relief lasted for only the slightest of heartbeats, as the next arrow was notched, and Jonah gritted his teeth against the pain in his tired muscles, waiting to lift his legs skyward once again.
“How many more rounds do you think they will take?” Branson asked in the stillness which followed.
“I hope not many,” Jonah said.
“Getting sore already?” Branson cackled. “Try being my age and doing this.”
“Gnarled pieces of wood don’t get tired,” Jonah replied, and heard a satisfying chuckle from his old friend.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Branson sighed.
“You’ll outlive us all, you know.” Jonah didn’t doubt his words. Branson had been old and tough back when he was a child.
“That’d be my luck,” Branson grumbled.
“Ah, come now. It can’t be all that –” Jonah was cut off.
“Shh!” Branson hissed. “I thought I heard something.”
And then Jonah heard it too. Someone had screamed. The sound of metal on metal, followed by a whooshing sound.
“Bowmen, up! Fall back!” The unmistakable voice of Commander Naseen rang out above the grass.
Another scream. Another thump and whoosh.
This time, Jonah felt it in his chest.
“Get up! Get up!” Branson shouted down at him.
Jonah gathered his arrows and stood.
A nightmare greeted him.
Hundreds of the steel-clad knights were behind them. Bowmen were running in all directions; it was a rout.
“How did they get behind us!” Jonah yelled. It was then he noticed a group of other soldiers running with the knights, dozens of men and women in long yellow and blue tabards, holding deadly double-bladed spears. Their mouths opened in unison, and Jonah saw the grass ripple like a wave upon the ocean.
“SUUM!”
His breath left his chest.
He tried to suck in but found himself choking for air and was once more on his back within the long grass. His ears rang as if he had been next to a giant bell.
Air finally pulled into his lungs. “What happened?” he tried to say, but couldn’t hear himself speak.
Suddenly, Branson was standing over him and pulling him to his feet. Branson’s mouth moved, but Jonah couldn’t hear the words.
He tried to understand what had happened. It felt like the time he had stood too close to a city gate during a siege back in Eura, and the sappers had set off some of their rock-splitters. But there were no fires or any indication of the sappers’ chemics this time. What was going on?
Branson jerked him forward, and he found his feet moving.
They had to get back to the infantry, back behind the pikemen.
Jonah's ears finally stopped ringing, and the sounds of dying men and women rose to meet him. They were being annihilated.
“We’re not going to make it to the lines,” he said aloud, but Branson kept pulling him forwards.
“Branson!” Jonah jerked his hand free and clapped his friend on the shoulder.
“What! Keep moving!” Branson shouted, apparently still not able to hear.
A group of three bowmen to their right suddenly stopped running and drew swords. An enormous knight charged into their midst and Branson and Jonah stopped in their tracks.
The knight’s giant two-handed sword was on fire.
The first bowman was nearly cut in half; the next one screamed in agony as the flaming blade cut right through her leg. The last bowman staggered back to face the knight.
Jonah saw a woman in a blue and gold tabard standing behind the knight. She was singing! Her hand was outstretched and she was looking straight at the blade. Her voice rose and, incredibly, so did the flames circling the sword.
The singing was enhancing the demon magic of the knights.
"The people singing! Re-string!" Jonah yelled as he dropped to his back. He hauled Branson down with him. His hand found the loop of his second lighter bowstring, and his feet were already pushing against the tough wood of his bow to unstring it. His training took over, and the bow was re-strung just as he sprang up out of the grass, finding his target.
His hand closed around the soft feather fletching of the smaller arrows in the flat quiver on his back. "Shoot the ones in the blue and gold tabards!" he yelled. His arrow found a throat, and the ringing pitch in the air dropped slightly.
"Re-string! Blue and gold! Shoot blue and gold!" His voice found a familiar note of command. The fleeing archers all around him stopped immediately and dropped to re-string bows.
Two more of Jonah's arrows found their marks, and then the grass around him erupted as his fellow archers rose back up and let fly their arrows.
The singing mages began dropping like flies.
But that still left the knights and their demonic weapons carving through the archers’ ranks.
A man not ten paces from Jonah's side screamed as he was skewered by a great sword, but the archer had dropped two of the singing mages before he died. Jonah avenged his fallen comrade as his next arrow found the gap in the knight’s visor. His hand notched another arrow before the body hit the ground.
“Jonah!” Branson grabbed him by the arm. “We have to retreat, come on!”
Another boom knocked them to the ground. Obviously some of the singing mages were still standing.
Branson pulled Jonah to his feet and started dragging him back to the barricaded Euran lines. Jonah ran as fast as he could. If one of those metal-clad knights found them, they were finished. The grass whipped at his face and hands, and his heart pumped so hard he thought it might burst.
They reached a slight rise and could see the spiked barricade of the makeshift Euran fortifications. They’d be safe there. They could make it.
Branson pulled him forward, but then Jonah heard something that made his blood run cold.
Fin was yelling a challenge to one of the Syklans.
“No!” Branson yelled, but not for Fin. He was screaming at Jonah. “You can’t save him! Get back here!”
Jonah hadn't even known he had turned around when he found himself running.
The knight smashed his hammer forward, striking Fin in the gut and dropping him. Jonah's heart leapt into his throat as Fin fell.
“No, damn you! Not him!” Jonah grabbed his last arrow and fired at a full run.
The knight raised his wicked looking hammer above Fin’s head for the killing blow.
Jonah’s arrow struck the helmet, ricocheting.
The knight stopped, saw him running, and turned to face him. The giant hammer began to spark with energy and the strange spheres set into the pauldrons began to glow. The nightmarish figure paused to point at him, signalling that he was next.
Before Jonah knew it, he was too close to fire an arrow. The first hammer strike should have finished him, but he found himself twirling his bow as if it were a staff and deflecting the hammer to one side.
The knight recovered quickly and turned the swing into a backhanded attack as he pivoted on his feet. The hammer caught the bow, and its weight and momentum ripped it out of Jo
nah's hand.
Jonah didn’t think, but kicked forward as he rolled beneath the next hammer swing. His foot connected with the knight’s knee, making the armoured figure fight for balance.
Suddenly, a rock smashed down on the knight’s helmet. Fin sprang up behind the figure yelling like a madman as he slammed the rock down again and again into the helmet. The nightmarish knight fell to the ground.
“Keep your eyes on the prize!” Fin yelled as his arm pumped up again and again. The rock was covered in blood as Jonah grabbed him.
“Fin! Enough! We have to go!” he commanded, and again the note of someone used to issuing orders made Fin stop.
A concussive boom sounded beside them, and then a yell. Jonah and Fin both and saw one of the singing mages spear an archer.
“There’s another one!” Fin stood and pointed, rage in his eyes. His hand went to his back and finding no arrows his eyes suddenly went to the dead knight at their feet. Before Jonah could stop him, he had picked up the hammer and started running at the mage.
“Fin!” Jonah felt helpless as he tried to catch him. There was something about this singing mage that looked different. His uniform was not like the others, and all too soon Jonah saw the singing mage spot Fin and then slowly smile.
The twin-bladed spear spun in a flurry over the mage’s head, and something in Jonah recognised the move. This mage could not only kill with his voice but was a master of the spear as well. Fin would be dead in three moves.
Jonah's foot hit something, and he fell to find himself face to face with a dead woman who was wearing the blue and gold tabard. His hand found her double-bladed spear.
His hand touched the smooth wood, and it felt like an old friend. Hang on, Fin!
The training of long years took hold, and Jonah felt the power of his blood surge to life after years of dormancy. His feet found new speed, his pulse slowed, and within moments he found himself outpacing Fin.
There was a satisfying moment of surprise on the mage’s face as Jonah reached the fight first. He countered the attack that would have skewered Fin, and spun into a slashing attack of his own at the mage’s face. It forced the mage back.
Fin tried to push past him, so he turned on his heal and slapped his foot across Fin’s face. Jonah flipped out of the kick and thrust his spear at the mage. "Stay back!" he commanded Fin. The very air snapped with the authority of his voice.
The spear moved like a viper in his hands, striking and snaking towards exposed holes in the mage’s defence. He didn't have time to consider that those who saw him might discover his secret. All he had time for was counter, slash, parry and push the attack. He flowed like the wind over the grass as he overwhelmed the mage spear-master.
The wooden shafts cracked together, and the bladed spearhead shot down at Jonah, but his body flowed around the move. Too late he realised it was a decoy. This spear-master had another weapon.
The mage opened his mouth. “SUUM!”
Jonah felt the air leave his lungs and his back hit the ground, but he held on to his spear.
The mage's weapon slashed down at him. A strike sliced across his shoulder, and then his stomach; both had meant to kill, but his own spear had moved on instinct, saving his life both times.
Jonah spun, rolling onto his shoulders and propelling himself into the air as his legs spun like a tornado. His back foot connected with the mage’s jaw. He landed, and his spear shot forward like a lightning bolt.
The mage opened his mouth, but this time no sound escaped, as Jonah's spear pierced right through its neck. Jonah watched the mage crumple. A look of shock and confusion was frozen on the dead man's face.
Jonah turned to find Fin staring at him.
"We have to get back to the lines," Jonah said. The old power he had used was gone, and it had left him drained.
“You kicked me in the face!” Fin looked positively horrified.
“You’ll get another one if you don’t start moving,” Jonah said as he pushed Fin forward. Thankfully the big man didn’t resist.
“When did you learn the spear?” Fin asked between breaths.
“I was just reacting,” was all Jonah could say.
“That doesn’t explain …” Fin trailed off and cursed.
A metal-clad knight rose from the grass in front of them. A wicked two-handed sword sparked blue and the spheres on her shoulders were already glowing as the great knight turned.
"You still have that hammer, Fin?" Jonah asked, watching their death step towards them. Even with his spear and Fin’s hammer, he knew they wouldn’t beat this knight. A circle of over a dozen warriors lay dead at her feet in the grass around them.
"I lost it when you kicked me in the face," Fin said anxiously.
“Catch!” Branson’s voice yelled.
The knight's hand intercepted the lazily thrown projectile easily, but then Jonah saw what the knight had caught: a sphere which was hissing.
“Get down!” Jonah dived and knocked Fin down with his shoulder.
The air detonated above them, and Jonah looked back to see a smoking patch of grass where the knight had stood.
Branson walked through the smoke with murder in his eyes. "Now you two get your stupid, sorry asses back behind the barricade!"
They didn't argue and met no other resistance on their run back through the tall yellow grass.
"I thought you said it was stupid to carry sapper explosives," Fin huffed at Branson as they found themselves running beside many of the other retreating archers.
“I said it was stupid for you to carry them," Branson growled; the old archer's face looked like thunder. "For someone who knows about them though, they can come in handy."
They came to a rise and saw the Euran defences just in front of them. They ran down the small hill to safety.
Thousands upon thousands of Euran soldiers were marching up the hill. Pikemen, skirmishers, heavies, and even what must have been twenty units of the Eternal Hand, all marched like ants back towards the enemy.
“Prince El’Amin is obviously going to try and turn this rout around then,” Fin observed as he watched the Imperial horde move past them into the field.
"He's forced to make a statement now," Branson said with a slight sigh. "The enemy’s clever move has forced his hand, and them folks in Dawn are gonna wish their rulers hadn't been so smart." Branson pointed to nearly a dozen groups of sappers marching alongside trebuchet and catapult crews.
Jonah shook his head. “What do you think the Prince will target?”
Fin answered, "Intel says those lovely temples are the weak point of Dawn. Their people will be on their knees within hours once those grenados and the thumpers start blowing their holy temples to bits." Fin looked sad as he spoke. "Damn shame. I wanted to see those temples."
“Intel says that does it?” Branson asked as he looked at Fin suspiciously. “Or are you just repeating the rumours you dredge up?”
Jonah rolled his eyes at Branson and clapped Fin on the back. “Come on, you need to see a medic. That knight’s hammer caught you something fierce. I’m amazed you’re still breathing, let alone standing.”
Fin smiled, but a curious look crossed his face. "So you say you've never had training with the spear, Jonah?"
"Well …” He was not quite sure how he was going to lie his way through this.
"Course you have," Branson cut in. "Remember? It was that tall scary fella who trained you. What was his name? Marrick, maybe?" Branson was wearing his “play-along” face.
Jonah remembered the old weapons-master who had trained him, a tall and intimidating man.
"I don’t know if I’d call those few lessons ‘training’, per se. It was more like getting my ass whipped." He tried to bend the truth, although the part about getting thoroughly beaten was all too true. Only a few lessons, however, was the lie, but it was a much smaller lie.
"True at that. You must have remembered something though. Obviously that week in Rakaisa was worth the money.” Branson laug
hed. "Saved your skin it did.”
“I’ll say.” Fin laughed, but then he looked at Jonah piercingly. “I just thought it odd how Jonah seems trained in the long-spear and can also shoot the eyes off a fly with a restrung foot-bow. It’s almost as if he had the same training as the Royal Blood.”
Branson missed a step, and Jonah saw a flash of panic in his old friend’s eyes.
They looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“Ha, ha. You’ve got me there, Fin!” Jonah bellowed loudly. “Yep, instead of lounging around all day in an imperial palace with servants at my every beck and call, I’ve decided to renounce my title, sail across the sea to what we all thought could be our doom, and then trudge mile after mile so I can break my back firing my damned foot-bow. My secret’s out, Branson! Too bad, I’ll have to go back to my life as a Royal.”
"Well, obviously I know that isn't what happened. Empress save me, I was just saying it was weird is all," Fin retorted. The friendly joviality had come back into the big man’s eyes, and he too was laughing at how ridiculous it sounded.
"About as weird as you caving in the skull of one of those monsters with nothing but a rock? Gods below!" Branson mocked. "Fin's pa must have been a giant and his mother a magical pixie. Pshaw, we all do crazy things in the heat of battle.”
"Drop it, alright? I was just saying is all." Fin said looking slightly abashed.
“Can we just get back?” Jonah sighed. “I need to get another set of arrows, and I want some water and a bit of food before we have to march back out there.”
“Finally, somebody with something sensible to say,” Branson grumped, and stormed down the hill.
Fin shook his head and quirked his eyebrow at Jonah. “Humph. Old people, right?”
They started down the hill after their grumpy saviour, watching another set of sappers and trebuchets roll by.
“How many temples do you think they’ll have to destroy?” Fin asked. The teasing spirit seemed to have been sucked right out of the big man as they watched even more sappers coming up the hill.
Visions: Knights of Salucia - Book 1 Page 18
