by Billy Wong
The person he'd bumped up against spun around to his front, a giant blade sweeping sideways. The upper torso of the man he'd impaled fell away as it sheared through his trunk. Theo realized his helper to be Isolde. He spotted his father and Gunther battling somewhere off to the left and asked, "What are you doing over here, Breaker? Shouldn't you be fighting with the king, being his champion?"
In a single huge blow, she felled three men charging towards them in sprays of blood. "He has Gunther, who's more used to working together with him. Someone probably should watch over his sons too. By the way, I was jesting before. You can just call me Isolde." Damon slashed down a tall opponent, only for another to strike his shield with a hammer and split it in half. He stumbled back favoring his arm, and the enemy pursued. Isolde ran in from the side, decapitated the man before he noticed. His lips parted in shock as his head tumbled on the ground before stilling forever. "Are you alright, Prince?"
Damon rubbed his forearm with gritted teeth. "I'm fine. Could use a new shield though."
Theo pulled one off the arm of an allied corpse, wincing as he glimpsed the youth's cloven face. "Here you go."
"Seems kind of flimsy. But I suppose it'll do until I find a better one."
They pressed forward, pushing at the enemies' wall of spears with their shields, finding flesh behind it with their blades when they had the chance. It seemed like Isolde could have won ground faster than she did, but she stuck with them, slaying any who came at their flanks so they never had to face much worse than even odds. Theo killed and killed, blood drenching his hands, splashing his face and clothes. He didn't know what nightmares he would have after this, but that was assuming he lived past the day. A more immediate concern was the way Damon flinched harder with every blow he took on his shield. "Are you really okay?" Theo asked.
His tightly drawn features made him look older than he was as he answered, "Think it might've cracked a bone in there. But we can't stop for that."
"All right. Just be careful."
They kept going. Theo took a burning cut across the thigh from an axe, broke his battered blade on a helmet when he tried to swing back. The stocky man raised his axe for the kill, but Theo beat him to the punch by ramming his broken sword up through his chin. "Ow," he said, dropping the hilt to clutch his wound.
"Maybe you boys should fall back," Isolde said as Damon clumsily fell to drive his sword into the chest of a knocked down adversary. "You've done a fine job already."
Damon looked up, sweaty features set with determination. "As long as our father fights... we'll fight!" He threw Theo the sword of his victim, which he barely caught.
She cleaved down through the shield and body of a gigantic warrior, immediately whipped her blade back up and divided the skull of another behind him in two. Theo wondered if the little twitch in her shoulders that followed was supposed to be a shrug.
Some time later, after an exhausting exchange, Theo struck down a foe with a chop through the collarbone. He caught his breath and started towards another. To his surprise, the man turned and ran. "What's happening?" he asked, head light.
"They're retreating!" somebody said. "We won!"
Theo looked around. They stood upon a hilltop littered with the bodies of friend and foe alike, the Ailune forces fleeing down the side opposite the one they'd come up. All of a sudden, he felt the pain in his leg acutely and grabbed it. His back and knees hurt from matching strength against strong men, his arms ached from using sword and shield for too long. So tired... he wished to lay down and close his eyes, but didn't want others to worry thinking him hurt worse than he was.
"This was too easy," Gunther said nearby.
"Too easy?" Damon asked between panting breaths.
"Yes. Why did they give up so fast, when we hadn't killed that many of them yet?" Theo thought they had killed a lot, but supposed that was just his small group and not the battle as a whole. "Why did they not have any death knights, if Manuiel is capable of making them, and why did he avoid facing the stronger among us? I fear this defeat may have been a ruse."
King Darius nodded gravely. "Yes, I imagine that after retreating without taking too many losses, he thinks to regroup and attack us from the rear when we go to save the capital."
"What are we going to do then?" Theo asked. "Maybe we should chase after them and wipe them out first."
"Your mother is at home, along with many of our men's families. If we waste time trying to hunt them down, the city may not be able to hold out and then who knows what will happen to them. So even if we know it's a trap, we have no other choice."
Theo opened his mouth to say something, but then realized his father was right and stopped.
"You didn't get to test his blade either?" Isolde asked Gunther while they treated their wounds before heading back. "I'd hoped to see what his fancy sword could do."
"I traded a few blows with him. He was very swift for his size, or should I say length, and didn't seem to lack strength, but broke off quickly. I couldn't leave the king, so..."
"Cowardly of him to feast on our inexperienced comrades' lives instead of challenging our best," Damon spat. Theo remembered getting glimpses between his own fights of a tall dark form twirling and leaping about as it cut down soldiers of Egrent. It seemed impossible to him that anybody could make use of such a dynamic style in crowded melee, much less one so large, but somehow Manuiel did.
Isolde said calmly, "Maybe he's just saving us for later." She must be inexperienced in war too considering her age, unless she'd fought somewhere outside of Egrent. She sure handled it well, though. Maybe she was just good at keeping all the fear, doubt and fatigue hidden inside.
When the tired, battered army approached home, they saw that the force gathered before its gates had set up stakes around their position, facing outward to hamper any enemies approaching from behind. "They seem well prepared for a rear assault," Damon muttered. "What a surprise."
The besiegers looked to number only a little over twelve thousand, but dozens of skull-faced figures in plate armor shambled among them. "This is the smaller force," Gunther said, "but it might not be weaker. Assuming they intend to stand their ground, this battle could be much harder." Much harder than the previous one? Theo's swollen, bandaged thigh throbbed, and he was sore all over. He had only slept a few hours each day on the way back, as he kept waking in the night from dreams of butchered corpses. Sometimes he dreamed of himself being killed, sliced open, rent innards slowly falling out as the life drained from him. He could scarcely imagine making it through worse.
"I and the others with heavy weapons with have to deal with the death knights," Isolde said. "You princes want to stay at my side or do something else?"
"We'll come with you," Damon said. "How better to lead than by braving the swords of the most dangerous foes?"
Theo damn near wet his pants at the thought of getting anywhere close to those things, but he wasn't about to abandon his brother or endure the humiliation of backing out. "Yeah. At the least, we can keep human enemies off you while you take care of the undead." Isolde nodded appreciatively.
They rushed the Ailune camp, but were inevitably forced to slow down to weave their way between the perilous stakes. Enemies jabbed with spears and shot arrows at them from behind the barrier, increasing the concentration of sharp points they needed to beware. Theo cringed at the sounds of steel piercing flesh and wailing men that surrounded him. Squeezing between two stakes, his heart skipped a beat as a spearhead flashed towards his chest while his shield was trapped against his side. But Damon cleaved away the tip, so that the broken shaft that struck him failed to penetrate his mail. Theo got past the gap and stabbed through the man's face, though the act still made his arm quiver a bit as he freed the blade.
"Be more careful," Gunther said. "Put your shield up before trying to squeeze through next time."
He nodded, but asked, "Would it be too much to hope that there isn't a next time?"
Past the stakes, they ran up ag
ainst the wall of tower shields and spears that made up the Ailune force's rear lines. They smashed away at it, Gunther and Isolde quickly making a breach as shieldbearers fell before the force of their attack. The rest of them plunged onward, slashing and thrusting at now vulnerable warriors who frantically scrambled back. Then two death knights stepped forth to plug the hole. Isolde tried to chop one in half as she had before, but it blocked with its mace.
"Metal haft," she grumbled. "Wouldn't have looked as impressive the first time if the duke equipped his creature better." Ailune soldiers surged around the undead, their weapons pounding into Theo and company's shields as they tried to force them back.
Egrent managed to hold its ground. After trading a few blows, Isolde disarmed the death knight opposing her and cut diagonally through its torso. A heavyset soldier took off the other's arm with an axe, then several men swarmed and dismembered it. Encouraged, their allies pushed forward harder. Their blood-covered blades bit endlessly into armor and flesh, and bodies piled up before them. Along the way, Isolde killed three more death knights. Of course men of Egrent died too, sometimes falling before Theo with guts spilling out, brain exposed or throat agape. He stepped over them, willing his disgust into anger so that he could return the favor to one of the opposing side. Once, a soldier collapsed into him with blood bubbling from his mouth and gripped his shirt desperately as if pleading for Theo to save him. Knowing there was nothing he could do and it was no time to be distracted, he shook the shaking fingers off, told the warrior to rest and pressed on.
His sword grew ever heavier, and harder to wrench free of bone every time he buried the blade into it. His arms and legs were on fire, his breath rattled in his parchment dry throat. The whole world seemed blood, weariness and pain... he couldn't go on. After slicing a throat he fell to his knees with his victim, staring unblinkingly into the dying man's eyes. They looked confused, as was he. Why did they even fight? They were already home. There shouldn't be any fighting at home...
"Snap out of it!" Isolde said, hauling him to his feet. She slapped him, and he tasted fresh blood. "We aren't even close to done!"
"Isolde?" he replied hazily. Damon stood behind him, watching with similar surprise. "I've never seen you excited before."
She shook her head as if in denial of something. "I just can't stand the sight of a good man like you being broken. You're barely even wounded, you can't give in yet. Look how weak the enemy are." She charged a pair of death knights slaughtering Egrent soldiers left and right. Taking one by surprise, she cleaved it apart, but the other plunged a sword into her side. She dropped her weapon.
Isolde elbowed its wrist, knocking loose its grip on the hilt, then grabbed it by the neck. She ripped off its helmet with her other hand. "That doesn't even hurt," she said, though her trembling arm belied her words. "You are nothing." With her bare fist she punched the skull face again and again, caving it in. The monster went limp in her grasp, and she flung it to the dirt. She retrieved her sword and walked back towards Theo. "See, they're weak." She stumbled into him, held onto him for support.
"Isolde!" he cried as her head drooped against his shoulder. "How are you?"
"I'm just fine," she said weakly. Her voice rose, tinged with fear. "Theo, watch out!"
She shoved him aside to the ground. When he looked up, he saw that Manuiel stood before her—his sword piercing her breast. "I had aimed to kill the prince first. But the order does not matter."
"You sacrificed yourself to save me?" Theo asked Isolde in shock. "Y-you barely know me..."
She forced a pained smile. "I didn't sacrifice anything." Now he realized she had caught the dark elf's blade in her hand in an attempt to keep it from piercing too deeply, although he couldn't tell how well it worked. She swung her sword up, forcing Manuiel to pull his from her chest to parry and driving him back. "It takes more than a couple of pinpricks like this to stop me." She raised the great blade to shoulder level pointing forward. "Now, demon, I'll kill you."
The towering being, his bony yet solid figure even more strange up close, waved the sword tauntingly before him. "Impressive. Perhaps you will be the first foe to challenge me in two hundred years. But even if you could defeat me, you should realize your struggle is futile as you will all die soon either way."
"Come to think of it," Theo said, "where are your other troops? We thought for certain you would return with them to surround us."
"I went ahead of them. However, behold." He pointed with his blade past Theo, who turned to look. A host of warriors approached from behind, the same host that had scattered with unusual ease reformed as expected. "Before long, you will be trapped between two forces stronger than your own. If your father cares for those who follow him, he will surrender now to spare them the massacre that looms."
King Darius fought his way into view, accompanied by Gunther. "Damon, Theo, are you all right?"
"Ask Isolde that," Damon said.
The big woman leaned on her sword now, no longer holding it up. "Don't worry, your champion can still fight. And I'll kill-"
Manuiel lunged as if to test that. He moved so fast Theo barely registered it, seeing him as a black blur that stretched from his position towards Isolde. Fright made Theo forget to breathe. Wounded as she was, even Isolde couldn't possibly...
The blur stopped and Theo saw that Manuiel had injured her again—but only barely. His blade had grazed her side as it passed, but she'd avoided taking a full stab and now barreled forward pushing him before her with a forearm against his throat. He set a foot down and attempted to flip over her. She caught him as he passed overhead, swung him with brutal force against the earth. Before he could roll over, she stomped hard on his sternum.
"You are a dark elf," she said while he moaned, "with hundreds of years of experience and inhuman speed. Therefore I am compelled to ask, how are you so disappointing? How early did you stagnate, did you stop improving within a human lifetime or regress in your arrogance?"
"I... underestimated the strength you had left. Let me up so we can fight on even terms, and I'll-"
She raised her boot, but brought it down again, this time on his head. His arms flew up from the impact. "You made a foolish mistake in life and death battle, where only one can cost you everything. Do I look like a man with overwrought pride, to let you off for it? This ends now." She stabbed her sword into the right of Manuiel's abdomen where the liver should be, then ripped it all the way out of his left flank.
Isolde took her foot off the dark elf's face. Whatever magic or superhuman powers he might've once possessed, his soul had clearly departed, blank eyes bulging from their sockets, tongue hanging out like a dead snake. Theo didn't even know if he'd been alive before Isolde mangled him, considering he hadn't made a sound while she dragged the blade through. Now she stuck her hands into the sides of the chasm in his torso, lifted him into the air and ripped him in half. The fact he had already been nearly bisected assisted her in performing the feat, to be sure, but Theo's jaw still dropped. A minute ago, it seemed inconceivable that Manuiel would die today, let alone like this. Even the gods probably couldn't have foreseen it. Or maybe the gods were on Isolde's side.
"You should never have gone ahead of your force, dark elf," she said. "That was your mistake too." She looked at the others. "What are you all gawking at? It's not so impressive. Based on the spar we had before, Gunther could easily have beaten him too."
Theo gaped anew. "What?"
"He didn't have such great skill. If he did, he would have chosen a less risky move than trying to leap over a warrior as dangerous as me while I was touching him. Maybe he relied too much on physical superiority all these years, or never honed himself against true challenges. That's why he broke away from Gunther so hastily before, sensing in his heart he might be overmatched. Due to letting him grow into a mythic figure in your minds, you all thought him more than he was."
On the other hand, Theo figured, maybe he had chosen that move because no one else could have countere
d it as effectively as Isolde had. Though her explanation made some sense, it wouldn't surprise him at all if she was just being humble again.
In spite of Manuiel's death, they weren't out of trouble yet. Encouraged by his subordinates who had taken command, the enemy fought on, and their reinforcements continued to advance. Isolde looked in bad shape, hunching over at any lull in the action, and Theo supposed even she neared her limit. He felt like he'd already passed his, his leaden arms seeming to move not at his command but of their own volition. But her amazing deed motivated him to keep trying. The warriors of Egrent formed a square to minimize the drawbacks of being surrounded and prepared to battle to the last.
Before the jaws of Ailune could close on them, a horn split the air. Theo gazed towards the western ridge from which it sounded. Another force stood there, smaller than any of those already on the field but heavily armored to a man, many bearing bright metal shields. At their head were three distinct figures—a blond silver-armored woman, a tall golden-armored man with a full-face helm, and a bearded man only slightly shorter than the latter who wore immense, blazing red armor.
"Are those who I think they are?" Theo whispered.
Gunther nodded uneasily. "Unless they are impostors who can field an army, yes. That is the Silver General, the Gold General, and the Hierarch himself."
Chapter 7
