The OP MC

by Logan Jacobs

  Chime.

  I fought my way to Cotinus and yanked Lucian from the saddle once more. The horse eyed me warily as I put my foot in the stirrup, and instead of laying across his back, I tried to throw my other leg up and over.

  I just about kicked the horse in the back of the head, and he threw me off by rearing for my effort.

  Chime.

  It took me over a dozen tries to get properly onto Cotinus’ back, and then it was just a matter of not getting thrown off again.

  The first time I managed to actually sit in the saddle, Cotinus snorted and started prancing in place. Lucian came up on the left and tried to yank me off, but I kicked him in the face. I must have brought my leg back too quickly because Cotinus twitched beneath me and took off like a rocket.

  “Hoooooolyyyyyy shiiiiiiiiit!” I cried as the plains around me turned into a green blur.

  As terrifying as it was to be properly riding a horse for the first time, I finally understood why so many people enjoyed it. The wind whistling through my helmet, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and the heavy breathing of the powerful animal beneath me were like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was like riding a roller coaster, but so much better because I could control how fast we went or when we made a sharp turn.

  I grabbed the reins that were flopping around on the horse’s neck, and when I yanked back, Cotinus came to an abrupt halt. I lost my seat and flew over his head.

  The ground stole all of my air again, and Cotinus looked down at me with his ears perked up.

  Chime.

  It only took me another handful of attempts to get the hang of pulling Cotinus to a halt with the reins. I was even able to get him to turn, although he was a bit ornery and tossed his head whenever I pulled on the reins. Getting him to actually go as fast as I wanted was another story, and I was afraid of hurting him if I kicked him too hard. I probably sat on the horse’s back in the middle of the plains for over an hour trying to get him to walk, let alone gallop.

  Chime.

  A dozen attempts later, and I was bouncing along on the horse’s back as he trotted through the tall grass. I could get him to turn in figure eights and stop, and I was even able to get him to walk backwards for several feet.

  “Now how do I get you to do that cool pivot thing,” I mused as I patted the intelligent animal on the armored neck.

  By the time I was ready to face Lucian and his army for the final time, I was able to leap onto Cotinus like a badass, and the horse didn’t take off with me anymore. I couldn’t quite figure out the pivot thing, but I figured out how to get him to rear up on command. Those hooves of his were a game changer for me.

  I respawned one last time, and as I looked at Lucian on his magnificent horse, I knew that this was the one to end them all.

  “Let’s do this,” I said with a grin before I charged toward my victory.

  Chapter 15

  Lucian and Cotinus came charging at me like they always did, and it was so easy to just leap out of the way. The red warhorse slid to a stop and reared up, and he did that cool pivot thing. His hooves kicked through the air a few times before they came smashing down.

  “I’ll be right back, okay?” I said to the horse as I dodged to the right. When Lucian commanded the horse to rear up again, I turned and headed for the first wedge of spearmen. “I’ll free you from your evil master very soon, Cotinus!”

  The spearmen always situated themselves into a nice organized front line for me with the first wedge under Sir Terrowin more to the left, the younger guys with burly Sir Reynald’s group in the middle, and the little greenies under Sir Saerus on the far side of the army.

  “Terrowin!” Lucian roared from somewhere behind me. “Kill him! Sir Owin, get your swordsmen into formation!”

  “I don’t know why you’re telling them to kill me, Loser Lord,” I taunted Lucian as I came up on the first group of spearmen. “I’m pretty sure that’s the obvious choice.”

  Sir Terrowin and his men advanced on me with their spears filling in any gaps in their formation. Each man was probably glaring at me from beneath his helmet, but I wasn’t close enough to really read their expressions.

  “Good morning, Sir Terrowin,” I greeted the lead spearman, and the man looked utterly confused when I bowed to him. “May I ask that you have Tedric step aside? He plays a very important role in this fight, and I need to be sure he is not injured by one of your men.”

  The man standing just past Terrowin’s left elbow straightened out of his attack stance. Terrowin himself ignored his soldier and sprang forward with his epic battle staff moves. The two spearmen on his left followed after their leader and jabbed their spears at me. The remaining spearmen stepped around the still very confused Tedric to close me in on the right.

  “Left!” I shouted at Terrowin as his attack came in on my left side. “Now to the right! Over the head and down at an angle from the right!”

  It was like I was using voice commands or something. Even when Terrowin tried to switch it up and pull a move that was probably his “ace in the hole,” I was able to guess correctly.

  I slammed my shield down on the two spears jabbing at me on the left. The first broke easily, but the second required three hits before it splintered. The spearhead spun through the air, and I snatched it as it started to fall. The first spearman was too stunned by my epic feat to even react when I plunged the spearhead through the open part of his helmet and into his face.

  Blood and brains splattered everywhere, and I leaped to avoid getting showered in the hot goo.

  I drew my dagger as I whirled on the second spearman and sliced across his throat. I spun away from both the spray of his blood and the downward swing of Sir Terrowin’s spear.

  The two spearmen closed in on my right, but I deflected their jabs with my shield and danced away from them.

  “Yoohooo, Lucian!” I called to the Loser Lord just a few yards away. “Can’t catch me!”

  “Block him in!” Lucian shouted as he urged Cotinus forward.

  “Tedric, get back into line!” Terrowin barked as he reformed his little wedge.

  The first wedge of spearmen was much smaller than before and really didn’t look like much of a threat. The second wedge was a few yards behind them and closing in fast.

  “Into position men!” One of the crossbowmen shouted. They were hidden behind the mass of swordsmen approaching from beyond the spearmen, so I knew they couldn’t get a good shot on me just yet.

  “You guys have to wait your turn!” I shouted to the crossbowmen.

  There was no response. So rude.

  As Cotinus thundered closer, I dropped my dagger and grabbed the spear from the man to the left of Terrowin. It wasn’t Tedric, of course, because I needed him for later. He tried to shake me off the weapon, but I kept a firm grip, and when I knew Cotinus was close enough, I yanked the soldier forward and spun him around.

  “Augggggh!” he screamed as Cotinus ran him down. Those big hooves came down with a crunch, and I knew he wasn’t going to be getting back up.

  “En garde!” I shouted at Terrowin as I swung my new spear at him.

  The man blocked easily, and for a long time, we exchanged blows like two young boys playing with sticks in the forest. These spears were so much stronger than a pair of sticks, though, and no amount of smacking them together would cause them to snap in two. After a few exchanges, I shifted so that my shield was between us, and I rammed him back several steps.

  Before he could recover and pounce at me again, I adjusted my grip on the spear and hurled it at the other not-Tedric spearman. The weapon sliced right across the man’s neck, and from the blood that came gushing out, I knew it had struck the carotid artery.

  It had only taken me a dozen attempts to get that move right.

  I turned as Terrowin came rushing at me with his spear down like a jousting match, and I drew my sword to knock his weapon away. I curved my sword around and brought it up across his face. His helmet went flyin
g and so did a big chunk of his nose.

  Sir Terrowin dropped his spear to clutch at what was left of his nose and blood seeped between his metal-covered fingers. He did nothing to protect his throat, and when I slashed my sword across the exposed skin, blood sprayed everywhere and ran in rivulets down the front side of his breastplate.

  The man was dead long before he hit the ground.

  Tedric let out a yelp like a kicked dog and dropped his spear. When he tried to run, I hooked two of my fingers into the back of his armor and tugged him back.

  “No, no, don’t run, Tedric,” I cooed at him. “You’re very important, and I need you!”

  “Stay where you are, Terric!” Sir Reynald barked from the approaching second wedge.

  The young man was advancing from the far-right wing of the formation and the spear in his hands was quivering dramatically in the air. He was just about ready to charge, but he wouldn’t break formation until I killed his big brother.

  “All in good time, my friend,” I muttered, more to myself than to Tedric, who merely whimpered in response.

  Lucian was trotting Cotinus behind the line of crossbowmen, and I guessed he had retreated after accidentally trampling one of his own men.

  “Slow him down!” the Loser Lord barked and pointed his sword at me. “Fill him with bolts!”

  The crossbowmen couldn’t ignore a direct order from their commanding officer, so even though there were plenty of men between them and me, they pulled their triggers.

  “Oh, come on,” I grumbled.

  Tedric wasn’t even trying to struggle from my grip which made it easier to jerk him around and out of the way of the bolts. I shifted and brought my shield up to cover us both, and from the way the older man looked at me, he must have thought I was saving his life and that I was going to let him free.

  “Oh, you sweet summer child,” I quoted from Game of Thrones as I swatted one of the last bolts away with my shield. “I had to keep you alive because of your brother over there.”

  I pointed with my shield at the young man holding the quivering spear as if Tedric didn’t know which man was his brother.

  “When I kill you, your brother will come rushing to avenge you, and the entire second group will fall like dominoes,” I explained to him.

  “Y-You don’t have to do this,” he whimpered.

  “I do, though,” I growled. “And I’m not sorry at all.”

  I released my grip on his armor, and as he begged for his life, I thrust my sword through the back of his throat. He was wearing one of those helmets that protected the front of the neck, so when my sword went all the way through, the tip scraped against the metal with a “nails on a chalkboard” kind of sound.

  It was a beautiful symphony.

  “You bastard!” Terric roared as he broke formation and sprinted toward me.

  “Get back here, Terric!” Sir Reynald shouted after him.

  “Can’t you at least give me a second to wipe your brother’s blood off my sword?” I complained as I withdrew the sword from Tedric’s throat and flicked it to get some of the blood off. “But if you insist on making this quick, I won’t argue.”

  The young man thrust wildly several times, and I just stood there and parried the attacks with minimal effort.

  “I’ll kill you for this!” he bellowed and thrust at me again.

  “You’re not the first person to say that to me today,” I replied as I shifted sideways to dodge, and then I smashed my shield down on the shaft before he could pull it back again.

  The wood splintered with a loud crack, and Terric promptly dropped it and came at me with fists flying. I had to admire the depth of love for his brother, but I had no time to deal with a grieving soldier.

  I dodged his first attack and then smashed my shield against his face. The crunch of bone against wood was followed by a groan, and his body collapsed right next to his brother’s.

  “Oh, look at that!”I exclaimed when I looked at the front of the shield. “I knocked out a few teeth this time!”

  I put the young man out of his misery with a sword thrust through the face. Blood pooled around the two brothers and turned the ground a deep burgundy.

  “Form back up!” Sir Reynald barked at the men of his wedge.

  “Why can’t you idiots kill him?” Lucian screamed. “I want his head!”

  “Guys, those are obvious orders,” I informed them. “You should say something like, ‘Galeren, Gifford, shift back so there are two of you on each side.’”

  The two men I named halted in their advance for a moment and even looked back at Sir Reynald as if they thought they should follow my orders instead. Sir Reynald gave just the slightest shake of his head and pressed forward.

  “You really should have listened to me,” I sighed as I flicked my sword again to clean off some of Terric’s blood.

  The swordsmen had broken into two groups and were fanning themselves out around the remaining wedges of spearmen. I knew they were going to surround us and try to force us even closer together, but I ignored them for now. They would get their turn in a minute, but the second set of spearmen needed to be dealt with first.

  I waited until I could see the lead man’s eyes glistening behind his helmet before I lunged forward. I swung with my sword to the left, and when he lifted his spear to parry, I pulled back and spun around to the lone man on my right.

  This was the left-handed spearman, and his jab had excellent form, but he extended his arm just a little too much. His eyes filled with terror as I ducked down and swung my sword upward through the joint where his arm connected to his body.

  Blood sprayed everywhere as the limb detached from the spearman’s body, and the spear fell from the nerveless fingers. The man’s screams of agony told me that at least he wasn’t a berserker like the goblins in the mine.

  I put him out of his misery with a quick slash to the throat which only added to the growing marsh of blood squelching beneath my boots.

  “Ruuuarrrrggggh!” the powerful Sir Reynald roared as he brought his spear down in an overhead attack that was all too easy to dodge.

  The remaining three spearmen in his group were a little slow to realize I was standing right beside them. They all started to turn their spears inward, but the guy in the middle of the line got his spearhead caught on the back of the left spearman’s thigh armor. The left guy stumbled and completely lost his footing. He didn’t even get a chance to beg for his life before I brought my sword down through his throat.

  The wound turned into a bloody fountain perfect for a Halloween decoration.

  The middle guy was staring in horror at what he had caused, and it was so easy to sidle up to him and thrust my sword through the gap in his helmet. As his body slumped to the ground, the remaining spearman jabbed his sword at me.

  I ducked down to avoid it, and I thrust my sword through the man’s groin. His goods were protected by a metal cup, but he tried to catch the sharp blade with his thighs and merely dug my sword in deeper. Blood gushed out, and his screams of pain and terror rang through my helmet like the tolling of a bell.

  Sir Reynald swung his spear down on me again, and I blocked it with my shield. He was always the most annoying of the army since he was built like a fucking sumo-wrestler. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had come at me with a section of a tree trunk as his weapon instead of a spear.

  But I hadn’t spent all those attempts twiddling my thumbs. I knew his every move, and dodging his attacks was a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ I let him get super close a few times just for the hell of it, and I saw the glimmer in his eyes when he thought he had me beat.

  That glimmer faded pretty quickly when he started choking on his own blood from a slash to the throat.

  “Kill him!” Lucian screamed. “What is wrong with you idiots? He’s just one man! I want him dead, and I want him dead now!”

  “Patience, my lord, patience,” I said in a calming tone. “There are still forty-two men left in your army. Do
you have so little confidence that they can defeat me?”

  “I am going to cut out your tongue so you may never speak again!” he barked as he urged Cotinus closer to me.

  “I thought the point was to kill me, not maim me?” I questioned him. “And if I had to choose, I would definitely take death over having my tongue cut out. There are so many wonderful things I still need to use that tongue for, and I won’t have you ruining fun times with my new wife!”

  “Line up!” Lucian shouted to the crossbowmen at the rear. “Form up and fill him with holes!”

  The swordsmen were finally in position and had formed a wide circle around me, Lucian, and the remaining spearmen. They started to close the gaps, and each man had his sword and shield at the ready.

  It was so cute that they thought they had me beat.

  The poor green spearmen were quivering where they stood, and it looked like Sir Saerus was going to burst an artery trying to keep them from turning tail and fleeing for their lives.

  “Form up, damnit!” the ranking spearman barked. “We will attack as a unit, and he will go down like a squealing pig!”

  “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” I scolded Sir Saerus. “I’m more likely to go down laughing than squealing, and certainly not like a pig.”

  Sir Saerus made some kind of scathing remark, but it was drowned out when I whirled around and leaped on Lucian in Cotinus’ saddle.

  “Wha--Arrrrggggh!” the man choked as I yanked him to the ground.

  And like I had done so many times before, I leaped into the saddle of my new warhorse and urged him into a rear.

  “There’s my big brave boy,” I cooed at the warhorse as I patted his armored neck. “Did you miss me? I missed you.”

  The horse responded to my commands like he remembered every attempt we had been through to reach this point. He turned and tore through the converging circle of swordsmen. The one on the left jumped out of the way, and I slashed my sword at the one on the right as we raced past. He managed to dodge, but at least we weren’t surrounded on all sides.