Jaekob stood in a well-to-do home, looking out through the big hole that had once been the living room bay window. Every idea he and Hawking came up with as they discussed plans quickly turned out to have one fatal error after another.
Hawking grumbled as he threw a crumbled sheet of typing paper covered in hand-written notes. "I'm so glad you're here. All I've come up with so far has been a half-dozen ways to get myself killed."
"Yes, I know what you mean," Jaekob replied, still staring out through the window. "Our best idea so far might have worked if we had a dozen more people."
Hawking looked up from the paper he was heading. "Which one was that? You seemed as unhappy as me with all the plans."
Jaekob finally looked away from the window to face Hawking. "The one where we simultaneously ambush the three pairs of guards hidden from their companions by the big backstop in the field."
"The one humans used to keep score of their ridiculous bat-and-ball game."
Jaekob nodded. "If we hit hard and fast, and took out all three pairs before they could raise an alarm, then we'd have a clear path inside. We could use their uniforms to infiltrate the camp, handing their weapons out to prisoners to grow our numbers as we went. Risky, but simple and direct, with the benefit of using the attackers' own weapons against them."
Hawking looked like he was about to say something, but he froze and broke eye contact, his eyes clicking over Jaekob's shoulder.
Jaekob spun around by reflex, and caught a glimpse of movement. "What was that?" It couldn't have been a deer. There were still far too many people living in and around the cities for deer to have made a comeback like that.
Hawking replied in a half-whisper, "I don't know. I hope it wasn't a soldier, because I'm not sure how they could've avoided seeing us."
A light knock on the house's front door made Jaekob jump and Hawking actually let out a small, high-pitched squeak in surprise. A woman's voice outside said, "I know you're in there, my prince. Please, let us in before they spot us and roll over you, too."
Jaekob brought his spear from its sheath on his back in one deft movement, the long, broad tip glowing faintly blue. So, whoever was out there talking was fae. He motioned for Hawking to open the door. Hawking crept to the door as quietly as Jaekob had ever seen the man move, grabbed both door handles, took a deep breath, then flung them open and stepped out of the way, drawing his sword.
Jaekob set his left foot down with a thump and drove his spear forward. He brought it to a halt only inches from impaling a young fae woman through her face. The color drained from her face and she took an involuntary step back, but she didn't flee or cry out. "Thank you for opening the door,” she said. “Now, may we come in before we draw the guards' attention to your hideout?"
Jaekob stared at the woman for a moment, then nodded and stepped aside. He couldn't help but compare her to Bells, largely because his little fae was almost always on his mind to one degree or another. Although their voices were similar, everything about Bells practically advertised her rural upbringing, despite her best efforts to blend in—an upbringing this woman certainly didn't share. Even her clothes announced she'd been born and raised in a city. There weren't too many of those on the other side of the Veil.
Surprisingly, she was followed by another fae, a were, then an elf, more fae...
When all was said and done, there were twenty-seven people taking cover in the house, which quickly became a little cramped despite its size.
The woman fae said, "Thank you for letting us in, Prince Jaekob. When the khan's raiders swept through our neighborhood, those who resisted were killed and those who didn't resist either fled, as we did, or they were rounded up and brought to the school."
Jaekob examined the woman as she spoke, judging her and weighing her words. He had no doubt she was being truthful. "Which of your family is a prisoner behind that fence?"
Her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, but just for a split second. "My husband and daughter. All these men and women with me have a similar tale. We have decided to get our families back, or to join them in dying at the hands of the Black Khan's troops."
Jaekob shot a glance at Hawking, who was already looking back at him. Apparently, it was time to revisit "the best plan he had come up with so far." He could hardly stand still as his excitement grew. They had a real shot now at freeing all those people before the Black Khan's troops slaughtered them like cattle.
Bells looked around, frowning. It was clearly all but over. There were just too many enemies attacking her from too many directions. Soon, she and her people would be overrun and slaughtered.
The threads in the back of her mind twitched, the Sword of Fire calling to her. Too tired to resist, she simply let the sword's intelligence in, and the threads spread even faster without her subconscious trying to oppose their entry.
"What do you want?" It was a rhetorical question—the sword didn't communicate with words, it meshed with her thoughts.
As the threads spread, though, she felt her exhaustion fall away. Or more accurately, she felt almost like she was watching someone else. Bells, the person, was outside of that exhaustion. She also felt a grim determination growing in her mind. It wasn't her own, though—the sword was doing its part, frantically reinforcing her will and... Well, it was making it so that she actively began to embrace a thrill of combat she hadn't felt before. Or was that the sword's view? She could almost believe it came from her, this newfound desperate desire to take as many of the enemy out with her as she could before the end inevitably came.
The sword flared, exulting in the battle. It wanted her to simply take over everyone on the battlefield and accept the fact that she could. To the sword's frustration, though, she still didn't want to. But now, what she really wanted to do was stop turning the enemy one at a time and start killing them all. Turning them wasn't going to save her, not anymore—not without Mikah diverting much of the enemy's strength. She couldn't do it fast enough. Not unless she did it one at a time, the sword reminded her, but she resisted that. A blanket turning would also strip Mikah's troops that were with her of their will.
But, she could kill them. She could make them pay a high price for their victory here, and die hoping it was enough to tip the ultimate balance. Somewhere, Jaekob would be doing his part. He was out there fighting, no doubt, and this battle would eventually end, as all battles do. There would be a victor and there would be a loser. Maybe, in dying, she could stack the deck in Jaekob's favor.
"Stand fast," she shouted. "Reinforce the right—No, to the east. Look at the enemy, they're stacking our right flank."
While the enemy elves, trolls, and weres prepared for yet another assault, Bells saw five elves standing in a circle, halfway between their troops and the burning manor. All five had hooded cloaks with the hoods up, drowning their faces in shadow. She felt a buzz in the air and focused on them long enough to send her senses in their direction.
What she saw made her stagger back. They weren't standing in a circle, after all, but a pentagram. It was a magically potent structure, and theirs was charged with an energy she could feel but didn't recognize. In the few seconds she watched, that energy grew, but it did it so slowly that she had to double-check to be sure. Bells thought back to the flaming blue mushroom cloud. This was probably the second time they cast that spell today, and when it went off again...
She had only a few minutes to live unless she ran, but she didn't want to run. Already, blood streamed from her sword and splattered on the ground. How many had she killed during the last assault? She wasn't sure. It was infinitely more gratifying, each and every time, than turning them had been.
She cursed at the sword and said, "No, that doesn't mean I want to turn them all at once. I told you, I'm not doing that to Mikah's people. They chose to be here, fighting and dying at my side to defend their king's home."
She felt an odd tickle from the threads in her mind, the sword's equivalent of shrugging his shoulders. Apparently, either cou
rse of action would fit its objectives just fine or it would have been pressuring her much harder.
A roar erupted from the enemy line. They had arranged themselves with elves in front, trolls in back, and the weres divided into two groups on either end of their line. Weres were fastest in hybrid form, when they could run on all fours yet fight upright. She wished she understood cavalry tactics so that she could do a better job organizing her troops in response.
Then, the many dozens of fighters in the line burst into motion, sprinting toward her few remaining defenders. She scanned her position and frowned. She couldn't have more than fifty people left, half of those wounded. She pursed her lips and nodded; this would be the last attack, and if by some miracle she managed to blunt their thrust again, the battle mages would be just about ready to unleash fiery hell on her. She made a quick decision that dying at the end of an enemy's sword was preferable to being burned alive, the way Mikah probably had been.
She wanted to make a speech, bolstering her fighters' resolve, but what was the point? She only had a few troops who still had their willpower anyway, and the ones she spotted wore the same look of grim determination as her turned fighters.
When the enemy line crashed into hers, the sudden spike in noise hurt her ears. Chaos quickly swirled all around her, and she strode through the battlefield swinging and thrusting her sword with a skill she didn't possess and a confidence she certainly had never felt. For once, she welcomed the sword's interference and just let it do its thing with her.
She turned around at a sudden, agonized cry as one of her trolls fell over backward, three spears buried in its chest. It toppled like a tree, and three enemy elves stepped through the sudden gap in her line before her fighters could close that gate. They calmly plucked their spears from the corpse, faced her, then spread out a bit to form a semi-circle. They stood between her and her troops, who didn't see the threat to their leader with their attention focused in the opposite direction.
If she called for help, her warriors would break ranks to attack these three from behind, but then her whole line would almost certainly crumble. Bells laughed with a joy she didn't feel—the sword's—and welcomed the elves to attack. "Try to do to me what you did to that troll. Come dance, fools. Don't let me take over your minds, though, if you can stop me."
In her mind, a simple plan crystallized, though it wasn't a plan she had come up with. It was solid, though, and she was confident that if they attacked all at once, she could kill two before the third would probably run her through with his spear. But if even one of them lagged, only by a second, she visualized the entire chain of events in the fight, and gave herself a seventy-two percent chance of killing all three—with a high probability that she herself would be mortally wounded. That didn't seem so bad as long as she got to spray their blood on the ground at her feet first.
A warmth flooded through her, spreading from the back of her head until it covered every part of her. It was comforting, like a heavy blanket on a cold day. She grinned and was grateful to the sword for making her truly welcome and enjoy the thought of what was about to happen. It was like watching a battle in a play—entertaining, not frightening or depressing. She muttered to the sword, "Neat trick. It's like you're programming me, somehow. It's awesome, keep doing that."
One of the elves sneered and replied, "We'll see how awesome you think it is when I watch the life in your eyes fade out. But there is no trick to how we're going to kill you, fae. You should have stayed on the farm."
Bells didn't have time to even think of a witty comeback before the three elves charged at her. So, this was it; one of them was about to run her through. Well, maybe she could take the third one with her...
She said, "Come die, then, if you're so eager to get close to me." She was struck by realization that this was her first-ever attempt to trash-talk, and boy was she bad at it. She grinned at the thought, and the elves' expressions in response to their prey grinning at them was priceless.
Up ahead, a plume of smoke rose into the air and Jaekob's stomach lurched. Based on the distance and direction, it had to be coming from his father's manor. He put all his energy into a mighty flap of his wings and surged into the lead, leaving the other few dragons to catch up.
As he flew, he refocused his eyes, telescoping in on the smoke. He felt a moment of near-panic when he saw a squad of elf battle mages standing between a nearby melee and the half-demolished, burning manor. But then his dragon eyes clicked as he unconsciously looked into a different part of the light spectrum; the battle mages were already casting a spell, and a ritual one, judging by the color. Those took long to cast, and the mages wouldn't break the spell to deal with oncoming dragons—to do so would release the ritual's energy all at once, and not on their intended target.
Jaekob grinned, revealing three rows of inches-long fangs in his dragon maw.
His stomach flipped-flopped yet again when his telescoped view caught sight of a single fae woman standing well behind the frantic melee line, facing three spear-wielding elves. He would recognize that fae's movements anywhere. Bells! She was a farmer, and she had no chance to hold off one trained soldier, much less three. She was doomed—but not if he could get to her in time.
He folded his wings in a few feet, which angled his nose downward and gave him a burst of speed. He streaked toward Bells, or more accurately, toward the three soon-to-be-dead elf meatsuits facing her. Telepathically, he sent out a call to the few other dragons in his wing. Take out the battle mages while they're still occupied with their spell.
With a grim enthusiasm, he imagined what was going to happen when his dragons disrupted that spell...
Movement caught his eye up ahead and to his left. He telescoped in again but then relaxed. The movement was merely the army of townspeople he had liberated, now armed with weapons from the khan's guards after he and the suddenly rebellious prisoners had torn them limb from limb—literally, in some cases.
Jaekob quickly estimated where his miniature army would be when he and the other dragons arrived at the manor. It was an easy thing to calculate, even from so far and so high while beating along at his top speed. Thanks, dragon-buddy ancestors.
He folded in his wings, streaking even faster toward the three elves attacking Bells. In his eagerness to sink fangs and talons into his prey, he felt his dragonblood Rising, and everything he saw took on a crimson hue. A comfortable, intense heat rose in the back of his throat out of sheer instinct, despite the fact that he wouldn't be able to strafe them for fear of hitting Bells or her unit.
Bruindy's voice came to mind. Easy there, champ. Don't get carried away in your enthusiasm. You'll go all 'a frenzy.
Jaekob lifted his nose a few degrees, leveling out a bit as the ground rushed up toward him. His prey grew larger as the distance between them closed. Don't worry about me. You worry about those mages and let me worry about managing my dragonblood. He added a chuckle to let her know he wasn't being rude. With telepathy, it was important to avoid misunderstandings even more so than while speaking in humanoid form. Regular speech was much more expressive and well designed for lies. Telepathy was more honest.
Just before Jaekob reached his prey, one of the elves spotted him and pointed. The three skidded to a halt, and they threw their spears as one at him, not Bells. He didn't bother to try to dodge them, but quite the opposite. They bounced harmlessly off his scales.
Below, Bells lowered her guard when the spears flew harmlessly over her head, and looked over her shoulder. She must've spotted him, because as the three elves turned to run, she burst into motion, shifting to head to her line's right flank, which was beginning to buckle. He would have to finish his prey off quickly if he wanted to get to her in time to have a chance at saving her. Why was she so crazy? Suicidal, even.
That line of questioning vanished from his mind as his flight path and the ground intersected. He landed hard, talons extended out in front of him, and when he impacted against an elf, it became nothing but a rag doll as
he drove it into the ground hard enough that his prey kicked up a cloud of dirt and blood. Jaekob's wicked claws impaled the elf and sliced through flesh and bone like paper. What was left by the time the dragon came to a stop on the ground was little more than shredded, crushed meat.
With his tail coiled, he spun so fast he was just a blur. He let the force fling the coil out of his tail as it arced toward the other two, radically increasing the tip's 's momentum like a whip. The blade-sharp fins at the end cut the first elf in half, sending him flying in two directions, then buried itself in the last elf's back. When Jaekob yanked his tail free, it sprayed a geyser of blood everywhere, and in Jaekob's almost frenzied state, the sight made his dragon heart sing.
He wasted no time, but transformed back into his person form and sprinted after Bells.
Bells glared at whatever random dragon had just flown in and ruined her fight. She wasn't too upset, though, because the chaos up ahead along the right flank promised an even more glorious chance to revel in the blood of her enemies before the end mercifully came and put a stop to all the conflict, pain, and confusion in her life. It was only the odd and overpowering thrill of battle the Sword of Fire had gifted her with for this, her last acts on Earth. Then, the sword would find a new wielder—someone who would allow the blade to meet its destiny by bringing peace to the entire world—but she had no intention of sticking around long enough to see that happen.
She leaped over several corpses, as well as a turned elf, mortally wounded. She plunged her sword into his neck as she ran by, ending his suffering. A warrior's death.
And then she was plunging into her east flank's swirling, chaotic melee. The sword felt like an extension of her body, and she made it dance. She impaled an elf, then took over the will of a troll just in time for it to save one of her troops from receiving the final, mortal blow from the elf standing over him.
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