Squire of War

by M. H. Johnson

  “Are you ready, Jess?” Mord's voice was soft, filled with the same dark camaraderie they always shared when school absurdities were put aside for the furious rush of battle in truth.

  Jess swallowed, her hands trembling with excitement. Locking gazes with Mord, even now looking back at her so intently, features utterly free of mockery, reminded her once more why she could trust him to have her back in battle, for all that she loathed him at any other time, knowing damn well that their conflict would only heighten once they returned to Highrock, Mord pressing ever harder to claim her as his prize.

  But for now? All that mattered was protecting her fellow students, warding them all from spear and arrow, ever ready to lash out in turn.

  A firm nod and Mord gave the order, scores of expertly trained destriers going from walk to canter in a handful of seconds. Jess sensed no break in the ground ahead. No deadfalls or pits laden with wooden spikes, so gave the nod, and as one they broke into a gallop, lowering their spears in perfect unison, giving vent at last to their charge, knowing their roars and cries and the sound of scores of horsemen would freeze their enemies in their tracks, assuring a victory swift and complete.

  A black shadowy form streaked forth from the keep, darting through the grass at inconceivable speed, headed straight for Jess.

  “Jess!” Twilight roared, “you were to wait for my return! It's a trap! This whole place is a trap! Retreat!”

  But it was too late.

  Jess heard the sudden snap of steel biting through flesh and bone.

  A dozen racing mounts crashing to the ground, flinging Squires and Aspirants both from their saddles, their mad charge broken with the awful screams of maimed horses and the cries of injured students.

  8

  Metal bear traps. A field full of them, Jess realized in those horrific moments of screams and panic as she desperately reined in her mount. Expensive and difficult to make; none but lords in bear country who reveled in the hunt would normally bother with such. Yet there they were, hidden in swaying grass; perhaps hundreds, for all Jess knew. No expense spared for a trap far harder for a scout to spot than pits or wooden spikes jutting from the ground. The fact they were made of iron and steel and utterly impervious to Jess's gift was perhaps simply bitter irony, or indicative of so much more.

  As if someone knew of her strange gifts.

  As if a traitor had revealed secrets that should never have left the halls of Highrock.

  But no time for horror or regret. No time at all.

  For in those moments, the central door to the imposing keep crashed open.

  Dozens of heavy shieldmen and crossbowmen came rushing out, all of them wearing the colors of Velheim's royal soldiers.

  And more soldiers still.

  “Ambush! Retreat! Retreat the way you came!” Lord Hyve roared, immediately pivoting around.

  “Jess!” Twilight hissed. The pressure of a single paw upon her cheek.

  And she saw a score of enemy cavalry seemingly sprung from nowhere, already at a canter, closing in on Hyve's retreating Aspirants.

  “Lance!” Eloquin roared.

  One piercing glance and Jess understood instantly. Their enemy would crash into Hyve's flank just as he cleared the area they knew was laden with bear traps.

  It would be a slaughter.

  It was a maneuver none of them had been expecting. But the one truth of battle was that the best laid plans never survived first contact. And he who failed to react, to push forward, to always seek to outmaneuver his foe, would surely die.

  Yet there were near half a score of students now mountless, half a dozen of those injured in the fall, two screaming as bear traps bit cruelly into their armor, saved from gruesome death only because they were wearing steel.

  Caught flatfooted with the screams of dying mounts and injured men, seeing the grim specter of death form against him by his own family keep had been too much for Hyve. He was acting on fear, not planning. His panicked retreat could get his men killed.

  "Jess!" A furious voice. Mord's. The one Aspirant who had not fled. In those frozen instants, Jess understood. Mord would never be so foolish as to counter his master's commands in the heat of combat, but he was determined to stay and fight. He was refusing to leave her side. For something far deeper than hate bound them.

  Jess flashed him a fierce smile.

  He had not fled.

  “Jess!” Eloquin's furious roar. “Squires to me!”

  There was no time.

  Crossbows ready to fire. Wounded and stunned students who could do nothing.

  A score of knights ready to crash into Hyve's flank.

  And Neal, saints bless him, had actually followed orders. He alone stood ready, twenty recurved bows held taught, desperate gaze locked upon Jess's own.

  If only the other Squires could act, he knew exactly what to do.

  She had one chance.

  Desperate in that instant to focus herself, Jess screamed as she flung her will into the twisting grass all about.

  She might not have the ability to instantly tangle a score of Velheim cavalry up in tenuous grass, but perhaps she had strength to do what must be done.

  Jess felt a momentary flash of dizziness. The sudden clang of steel traps snapping shut echoed through the air.

  “Neal! Now!”

  Neal did not hesitate. Arrows released with his whistled command.

  Velheim crossbowmen shouted and ducked behind armsmen quickly raising their shields as a volley of yard long shafts rained down upon them.

  “Eloquin! Charge the crossbowmen. The way is clear! Mord! Malek! By my side!”

  Not wasting time even looking back, Jess pivoted Mercy around, racing to exactly where the enemy knights and Hyve's still panicked body would meet. A thousand images flashed in her mind's eye, tactical possibilities evaluated and discarded at blistering speed, time itself seeming to have stretched endlessly in what had been but a handful of moments.

  “Lance! Pivot left!” Jess screamed. “Hyve, Pivot left!”

  And miracle of miracles, he began to do just that, still making his way for the treeline as fast as he could, yet galloping away in loose formation from the approaching threat, the enemy cavalry now forced to give chase.

  Jess heard the distinctive twang of crossbows being fired, but didn't dare look back. No one knew better how to counter crossbowmen in the charge than Eloquin's Squires, protected by the most carefully constructed helms and breastplates, Jess envisioning a score of her fellows charging desperately forward, shields held at angles to invite bolts skipping off before sinking their spears into the enemy.

  Jess prayed she was right, and that the screams she heard belonged to the enemy, not her fellows. For if Jess had made the wrong call, at least some of her friends were dead, and she would never forgive herself.

  Yet she dared not look back, so sensitive Mercy was to every squeeze of her hips, she and her mount having trained to fight as one. Instead, Jess focused her terror and fury on the score of charging knights she had pivoted herself to crash into the heart of, her closest friend and enemy both racing by her side.

  Twenty lances pivoted to meet the threat fast approaching. In another time and place, her desperate strike against a score of trained heavy cavalry would be suicide. Jess laughed as a berserker's fury took hold, Mord and Malek's own howls the last thing she heard as she tilted forward, her spear expertly couched, and charged into the pivoting mass of knights full force.

  Plated brigandine over mail met the tip of her spear.

  A score of lance tips in perfect position to meet her charge.

  And not a one touched Jess or her friends.

  Her spear struck true, and did not break.

  A terrific wrench, before awful resistance suddenly gave, and Jess tilted forward, pivoting herself to release her weapon with consummate skill, an instant before the wrenching force would cause her shoulder and wrist serious injury.

  The clang of multiple armored bodies crashing to the gr
ound.

  Screams and whinnied panic, half a score of lances having been wrenched completely out of their wielder's hands.

  A bow wave of force, horses belonging to enemies already off balance as their weapons cartwheeled away were easily knocked aside as Jess and her companions crashed through with singular purpose.

  "Hyve! Pivot and charge! Pivot and charge now!" Jess screamed, allowing a single glance back at the milling swarm of suddenly disorganized enemy knights, three of their number still upon the ground, two impaled by spear shafts that hadn't even cracked as they punched through brigandine and mail, the third rolling around in agony, smearing stains of crimson upon the grass, hideous sucking sounds as the dying man gasped for breath. For the breastplate he wore had shattered, jagged slivers of steel turning his chest into a gory ruin, the air now reeking of blood and offal.

  Her closest allies riding at her side, Jess locked gazes with the fiercely grinning countenance of Mord. “Well done, my prize. Now let us pivot and pin them!” With that he spun around, estoc raised, four feet of sharpened steel aimed for the backs for the knights only now pivoting around, shouting amongst themselves.

  Jess snapped her mare's reins as Mercy pivoted around and sped into a gallop within seconds. An exchanged glance with Malek, a grim nod.

  They were now putting their lives absolutely on the line.

  If Sir Hyve did not come through, they were as good as dead.

  Tilting forward with her estoc much as Mord had, the three of them crashed into their foes as one.

  Jess felt her estoc punch through her foe's mail shirt with a sudden jolt as enemy lances were once more sent flying from the hands of furious knights, Jess letting go of her estoc just as it impaled her victim to the hilt, yanking her mace free of saddle hook even as the surprised looking knight before her gasped and coughed out pink frothy blood before collapsing to the ground.

  And time seemed to slow as battlefury consumed her. The flash of a blade furiously thrust at her face, blue eyes glaring at her with terror and hate before bulging in sudden surprise then bursting, her mace having exploded into her foe's helmet with horrific force even as she parried yet another knight's warhammer, her light wooden shield resonating with the strength of all the forests of Erovering, jostling not an inch under the force of her opponent's strike, the man screaming piteously as she pounded down upon his mail covered forearm, feeling bone shatter under the force of her blow.

  Mailed fist to exposed face.

  Nose crumpling, another enemy dropping from his saddle.

  Falchion whistling through the air, countered an instant before smacking into her mail covered neck.

  A stunned cry as pain blasted through her skull, enemy mace not parried quickly enough.

  Mord's roar, and a triumphant grunt turned to an agonized scream, Jess's assailant brought down.

  But seconds before they were successfully swarmed by their foes.

  A shout of defiance. She would not die easy.

  Jess kicked Mercy forward. To be pinned was to die. A knight crashed into her, his sword swinging madly for her skull. Jess slammed down with her shield, her mace whipping around her foe's back, snapping up towards his helm. Fulcrum, leverage, killing force. Her helm rang like a gong to his sword. His helm rang not at all, but crumpled before the fury of her mace.

  Another soldier dropped to the ground, spasming in death.

  "Jess!" Twilight hissed, Jess wrenching her head down, a war hammer just clipping her helm. Ears ringing, her skull throbbed with pain.

  Jess screamed, losing herself to the crimson fury, feeling as much as seeing her mace slam into desperately raised shield. A fierce snarl and the shield of wood and iron twisted out of the knight's hand. Chin no longer tucked to his chest, his look of surprise became a grimace of agony as Jess rammed the head of her mace into a suddenly exposed throat, mail coif doing nothing to protect her foe from a crushed larynx.

  Hideous choking cries as her foe desperately clenched his own neck, toppling to the ground.

  “Jess!”

  Mord's disciplined roar. About to be overwhelmed by three foes at once.

  No! The only one allowed to hurt him was her. She barely recognized her berserker's scream as her mace whipped down upon the closest knight's head, crumpling him even as sword and mace banged upon Mord's armored form.

  “Mord!”

  “Hyve comes!” Malek cried, and she felt as much as saw Hyve's men charge into the mass of Velheim knights. The fury of mortal combat having forced all their attention upon the three desperate youths pounding into them, Velheim's elite cavalry had been but seconds away from successfully surrounding and bringing Jess and her comrades down.

  And so were utterly exposed to Hyve's charge.

  The shriek and crash of spears plunging into armored flesh. Spears that did not snap under the terrible strain. The air was instantly filled with the din and cry of men thrown from their horses, slamming into the ground, shrieking or gasping their last, pink frothy blood spraying forth when no cry could be uttered, multiple knights expertly run through.

  And not a single spear dared strike Jess or her two companions, for all that more than one Aspirant gazed at Jess in shock, terrified to have pinked fellow Highrock students in their furious charge.

  9

  Within seconds the last of the opposing knights had been sent crashing to the ground, a score of hungry maces and war hammers eager to pound the life out of even armored foes, cries for quarter or mercy utterly unheeded.

  Shaking himself out of what seemed a dazed stupor, Hyve shook his head, taking in Mord grinning with gleeful madness, armor crimson as much as silvered steel, holding up a warhammer covered with blood and brain.

  “Well done, Mord! You distracted our foes and made use of your beau's talents, just as I had hoped you would.” He turned to gaze at the furious melee before the keep, glaring at the scene. “Saints above, something foul is afoot! I fear the direst of magics; everyone is screaming! Approach with caution, men.”

  But Jess and Malek were already racing for their companions, Jess's battlefury instantly replaced with sick dread, terrified for her friends.

  It mattered not that Neal and Eloquin had acted in perfect concert, the results exactly as Jess had hoped; suddenly distracted crossbowmen dealing with a volley of arrows had been ill-equipped to deal with a charging band of Squires, with a score of enemy soldiers now impaled upon the spears that had killed them.

  Yet where Jess hoped for the exultation of victory, she felt nothing but gut-wrenching horror.

  For all her friends were twisting and screaming upon the ground, including half a score of enemy soldiers that appeared to have survived the charge, even as they twisted and writhed. All save for Eloquin himself, grimacing as if he struggled under the weight of death, doing all he could to stumble back out of what Jess sensed to be the most hideous of arcane traps with Erica, the smallest of their number, in his arms.

  And never had General Eloquin looked so furious, so terrible as he did at that moment. Gaze hard as granite as he seemed to hold tight to the souls of dozens of Squires, refusing to let Oblivion claim them, no matter how they all writhed and screamed.

  Gazing at them almost hungrily, yet standing carefully back, were the thirteen original slavers.

  Jess felt her guts knot up in terror and fury in equal measure, having caught the gazes of the black robed men behind the slavers, whispering vile curses that scuttled through the air.

  “Infernal trap! Jess, be careful.”

  Jess nodded at her familiar's words, having sensed the outline of something dark and foul.

  But it was not the complex weave of a spell, she sensed, so much as a matrix. An awful matrix that seemed almost as if it were pulling the very fabric of the land deep in some unfathomable direction, and Jess was filled with a sudden unspeakable dread, as if the beautiful land would flood with a darkness and horror so thick that no one and nothing could survive.

  "Twilight!" One panic-strick
en word.

  Sapphire eyes hinting at such terrible wisdom met her own. “Be careful, my queen. Powers once taken for granted are now clumsy and strange. You would step into Shadow at grave peril to yourself, dearest Jess.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jess snarled but did not abate her charge, instead shifting her course, charging the robed men instead. “Malek! Are your wards ready? Dark wizards ahead!”

  She could hear Malek's howl, almost like a wild beast, Mord laughing madly as he raced by her side.

  Even gripped as she was by fury and terror, one thing didn't make sense. “Why the hell aren't those slavers attacking our Squires?”

  "Your friends are caught in the darkest of traps," Twilight said. "If the slavers approach, they will be sucked in as well."

  Jess frowned at this, shaking all confusion away. “Trap or no, those bastards are dead! Bloody hells, I know I can bend spellweaves sometimes, but if they attack in unison?”

  Twilight patted Jess's cheek. She then felt a sharp sting upon her cheek. "Twilight!"

  “You know what to, my queen. Hesitate no longer.”

  Jess shuddered and gasped. She did indeed know what to do, realizing she could do far more than bend a spellweave.

  What could be bent, could be broken. And if she could brush aside her friend’s magics with her fingers, imagine what she could do with her blade.

  Jess felt a shiver, dark and cold, course through her.

  Hesitating no longer, she quickly unsheathed her saber, carefully made to Eloquin's specifications, and as wickedly sharp as any fighting blade could be.

  Grimacing with her mounts jostling canter, she brushed the blade against her cheek, wincing when it bit deeper than she intended.

  “Bloody hells, Jess, what are you doing?” Malek shouted, but Jess only shook her head.

  “Neal!”

  “It's no good, Jess! Something is protecting those wizards from our arrows!”

  "No matter! Form up with Lance! When I break Hawk free, give us cover fire while Lance charges anyone at our backs!"