The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Raising its two horned head, the summoned monster—the contours of its body each a slightly different shade of red—bellowed at the sky and opened a pair of solid, green eyes.

  “The Red Bull!” screamed a number of the Fighting Swans, and the barbarians started chanting.

  “Mogrey! Mogrey! Mogrey!” they screamed.

  “Run away!” cried a goodly number of her warriors.

  “No!” called Darius. “No retreat; no retreat! We outnumber them, bring the standard forward!”

  The giant creature—that did look very much like a Red Bull to Falon, now that it had been pointed out to her—pawed the earth and snorted blasts of fire and white steam out its nostrils. It was obviously preparing for a charge.

  “If we kill the sorcerer, his creation will die!” Falon shouted, leveling her sword at the creature and not having enough presence of mind to remember until after she said this that the barbarians had shamans, not sorcerers.

  “We’re doomed!” exclaimed a man in front of her as he turned to run, only to be cut down by an axe to his back the moment her turned.

  “Hold steady men!” came the voice of Aonghus, one of the file leaders, “it’s done nothing yet! Would thou tell thy children face to face that ye ran from illusions and roadway mummery, while others like Papa Aonghus stood fast? Let it prove it’s more spirit than ghost before we take to our heels, I say!”

  Taking heart at the suggestion that the creature might be nothing more than smoke and mirrors, Falon glanced over her shoulder and saw fearful faces all along the wavering spear line. With barbarians on either side of them there was nowhere for the men currently engaged to run, which was something of a relief after the latest calls to flee. Of course, only about half her Fighting Swans were fully engaged…

  Turning to look back up at the spirit bull, her blood ran cold when she observed the dirt clods launching into the air beneath its pawing hooves. If it could pick up dirt and sod and throw it several feet into the air behind it, then this was clearly no ghost.

  She gulped. If it got in amongst the men, they were going to break. Even the bravest of them were only calling to hold fast until they could see what the monster was. It was going to be up to someone brave enough—or stupid enough—to delay it, or else she was about to get the chance to see if Darius’s lectures about he who ran away being the man most often cut down by the enemy.

  The Red Bull stopped pawing the ground and charged. There was no longer anytime for thoughts and fears, or waiting for some storybook hero to step forward and handle the creature.

  Falon picked up her feet to flee, like any rational person faced with overwhelming magical superiority, and instead found herself running forward shrieking wildly at the top of her lungs.

  “The Swans! A-Rankin for the Swans!” she screamed, not even skipping a beat as the apprentice wizard, safely-ensconced in the middle of the main body of her company, shouted something and tossed a flaming metal ball at the charging bull.

  The fireball bounced off the bull’s head without any noticeable impact before rolling close enough to send the shaman atop his Ice Lizard—and what she figured was his apprentice—scrambling away.

  Her sword leveled at the beast while she was closing the distance, Falon raised it high as she neared the bull and, taking a two-handed grip, swung it down right at the bull’s head.

  The clang when her sword struck the bull’s horn sent a vibration to her hilt that was so wicked she almost lost her grip. However, her arms weren’t the only thing burning with extra strength, and while her hand went numb and she almost lost sensation in it entirely, she maintained her grip on the weapon.

  With a ‘ting’ sound, the outer half of the Red Bull’s right horn bent over and fell off. Before the horn had even hit the ground, the spirit animal threw its head back and bellowed, even as smoke started pouring out of the severed end of the horn.

  “Throw another fireball at the beast!” Darius bellowed from somewhere behind her.

  “The beast doesn’t appear to be affected by heat!” Schmendrick hollered back. “Besides that’s the only fireball I could afford.”

  “What?” Darius yelled with disbelief.

  “I’m a working student,” Schmendrick protested, “what we need to do is focus on the shamans, that’ll take care of the bull…I hope.”

  The bull stopped throwing his head from side to side, its eyes abruptly catching on Falon. Making a sound of pure, bovine rage, the bull hopped forward and slammed his head into her. She barely had time to instinctively raise her hands before the monstrous power of the creature’s blow sent Falon flying through the air.

  “That looks real enough for me; the bull just killed the Lieutenant!” cried one of the warriors just as Falon hit the dirt.

  Falon rolled kettle over spout, her hands and chest aching but hearing the cries of alarm behind her she stagger-rolled back to her feet. She took a single step towards the bull, and would have taken another but her legs buckled and she had to catch herself with her a hand on the ground to push herself back up.

  “He’s not dead yet. Stand fast you blimey, milk-sopping, dirt-clods,” Darius snapped. “Stand fast and push them back. You let our wizard deal with those inbred, sheep-loving, witch-he-doctors.”

  Back on her feet, but unable to speak, her lungs spasmed as she attempted to regain her wind. Falon weakly raised her sword high, and she was amazed that she managed as much as she did. It must be the power still snaking its way up my left leg, she decided.

  The wizard started chanting as the bull turned around and lunged toward her again. Realizing she’d lost her sword somewhere after being tossed head over heels, Falon’s hand clutched reflexively at her belt.

  She gulped as the magical Red Bull let loose a shriek that no cow or bull should ever make, the noise transcending the natural world, and fear filled her heart. She started backing away frantically, only to look fearfully over her shoulder to see she was retreating in the wrong direction! She was backing up to several barbarians! Her hand fumbled over the hilt of her shri-kriv, the boarskin-over-boar-toothed handle almost slapping into her hand as she did so.

  Jerking it free, she leveled the razor sharp blade at the bull and in that very moment, her heart sank. It was like a toothpick compared to the Imperial Steel blade she had just lost—which had been nothing too large enough to begin with—when faced with such a massive creature. It was it was all she could do not to turn and take to her heels when faced with the reality of such a small knife against such a large Spirit Animal.

  Only the certain knowledge that everyone would see her and her ‘cowardice’ in the face of the enemy if she turned and ran, and that this would impact her family, kept her rooted in that spot, unable to advance like a Knight or hero yet equally unable to turn and flee like any person with half a working brain.

  Knees shaking like a sapling in the middle of a wind storm, Falon cowered slightly and prepared to die. She knew it would all be over soon, so she closed her eyes and prayed silently. She didn’t want to have to watch her own doom. A second later she leveled her knife, so at least they could later say that she’d stood and died ‘like a man.’

  For a half second, her lips twitched at her own thought. ‘Like a man,’ indeed! If only they knew…

  The bull’s feet thundered towards her and, almost against her will, she chuckled. If the sound which actually came out of her mouth was more whine than chuckle it, and the secret joke at everyone else’s expense, still lifted her spirits enough that she opened her eyes. She saw the Red Bull less than one of its own body lengths away.

  Adjusting her aim, she determined to sell herself dearly, and then there was no more time for thoughts of cowardice or bravery. The beast was on top of her, and there was a great flash of light. Men screamed and the Red Bull bellowed, as if in agony. No longer able to see, yet despite this somehow still able to sense roughly where the Spirit Creature was, Falon let loose a battle cry of her own and stabbed about generally where she remember
ed the Red Bull’s right eye to be.

  Stabbing with the knife in her left hand, she felt the blade skitter over solid bone and knew she was about to die. Any moment now the bull was going to recover. Feeling the animal rear up, still bellowing, she was irritated with herself for missing with her blade—as well as so afraid that her bladder let loose and she could feel a warm trickle down the side of her leg.

  Pushing such thoughts aside, Falon screamed and before she could stop herself, grabbed a hold of the bull’s left horn with her left fist.

  She could tell the instant the bull pulled her off the ground, as the warm power snaking up her leg was instantly severed. It seemed she needed contact with the ground to feel the earth’s power. She could still feel the power deep within her lower belly slowly starting to fade but instinctively knew that for the moment it was still there.

  So as the bull bellowed and shook its head from side to side trying to shake her off, Falon drew back her arm. Baring her teeth, she thrust with her shri-kriv with all the force inside her body. Power that had been coiled inside her burst up and through her arm, with enough force that her small blade punched through the bone-like armor of the bull’s head.

  Feeling empty and alone, almost as if she had lost something—and hot enough that she wondered if she was coming down with the flu—the preternatural strength that had come over her fled in an instant, leaving her feeling weak and helpless. As the bull gave one final toss of his head, this time her regular, womanly strength failed and she went flying—straight into a tree.

  She slammed into the twenty year old evergreen with a rib-cracking thud, branches breaking her fall as her sideways momentum failed and she slid down to the earth.

  Landing on her side with a thump, the fifteen year old girl just lay there. It hurt to breath, it hurt to move, it even hurt to just lay still, and Falon groaned in pain.

  “Forward and cut his throat,” Darius raged, sounding to her ears as if calling out from a far distance, although she knew that he couldn’t be that far away, “kill the shaman!”

  Everything coming to her ears as if from a distance, Falon levered herself up until she could see what was going on.

  “Mogrey’s! Mogrey’s,” the barbarians moaned with despair, and she heard the sounds of battle briefly intensify, the sound of metal on metal, and metal on wood, growing to a great clamor before dying down.

  “After them, lads!” cried a man with a Kingdom accent.

  Falon leaned up against the tree, whimpering from the effort, just in time to see the barbarians running for all they were worth back to the trees with her men in hot pursuit.

  Swiveling her head, she saw young man-boy she took to be the old shaman’s apprentice pick up his master—who was kneeling on the ground with the palms of both hands over his eyes—and toss the older man onto the saddle of the ice lizard.

  For a single, extended moment, she saw the boy’s eyes—which were now glowing solid gold—before the boy crouched down and then leapt into the air. Phantom bird wings instantly appeared on his back and those wings the same, golden, color as his eyes.

  The boy called out, his voice more an eagle’s shriek than a barbarian’s words, and the ice lizard jumped to follow as it broke into some kind of reptilian canter.

  Shouting with frustration, Darius stagger-stepped as he bent down to snatch up a fallen spear. He drew back his arm and hurled the spear at the retreating shamans.

  With an audible grunt of effort, the spear arced into the air before catching on a tree branch over the retreating figures and getting caught up in the branches.

  An instant later, the shamans disappeared into the brush, beating a hasty retreat.

  “Have at them!” screamed Duncan, holding a rusty, bronze battle-axe in his hands for some reason.

  “Hold and maintain formation,” cried Darius, “return to formation and dress your ranks!”

  “But we can get them while they’re on the run,” Duncan protested.

  “Form column,” Darius snarled, “following them into the underbrush is a fool’s gambit; our strength lies in our spear-wall and close spacing. If we break ranks and chase them down, it’s one man on one man, and I don’t know about you but those savages are tall and thick-thewed. Let the Captain and his men-at-arms chase them down in the underbrush; they’ve got the weapons and armor for it.”

  There was some grumbling but when Falon staggered to her feet and lurched out of the trees, she did a quick head count and would have been surprised if more than a handful had given chase.

  “Lieutenant Falon,” Darius exclaimed, hurrying over as she limped the few feet separating her from her nearest warriors.

  “Sergeant,” Falon wheezed, holding her sides with both hands.

  “Someone get the Officer his horse,” Darius barked, turning to glare at one of the men before producing her sword and offering it to her, “you dropped this.”

  “Thanks,” Falon winced as she accepted the hilt and then tried to lift her arms over her head to sheath the weapon. The pain was too much and her hands only made it half way up before stopping.

  “Are you alright, Fal?” Ernest asked, holding Bucket’s reins in one hand and a short bow in the other.

  “Fine,” Falon said irritably. Any fool could see that she wasn’t doing fine; she was hurt! But she couldn’t say anything of the sort in front of the men of the Battalion.

  “Here, let me help you,” Ernest offered, placing his short bow across the horn of the saddle and reaching over for her sword.

  For a brief moment they had a tug of war, with Falon refusing to let go of it, but Ernest was persistent and she finally gave it up as a bad game—and one that made her look particularly foolish, to judge by the smirks quickly covered by her men.

  With her hands out of the way, Ernest quickly sheathed her sword for her.

  “I could have done that,” Falon grumbled.

  Ernest looked at her doubtfully.

  Without an expression one way or the other, Darius turned from her to Ernest.

  “Hop back on that donkey and run a message back to Smythe. Tell the Captain we were assaulted by barbarian raiders and we’ve had not a word from the skirmishers under Sergeant Gearalt before, or since, the attack,” the Sergeant said.

  Ernest opened his mouth and Darius cocked a single eyebrow.

  “Now, Warrior,” the Imperial said flatly.

  Ernest jumped, and giving her a regretful wince, he hurried over to Bucket the Magnificent. Falon was pleased to see that he was moving with much less of a limp than he had before she started forcing him to work his leg.

  Someone came up, holding the reins of her horse. “Here you go, Squire,” the man said, and Falon paused to look closely at him. It was one of the Ravenmen who’d joined her ‘fighting tail’.

  “Many thanks,” she muttered.

  It took the assistance of both Darius and the Raven to boost her up into the saddle. At the end of it, she’d broken out into a sweat and her field of vision had narrowed.

  “Duncan,” Darius called out and when the farmer-son arrived, “I want you to run back and find a Wench. The Lieutenant, as well as several other men, will need healing soon as the moon’s up.”

  “Why me?” Duncan said with a bit of sullenness. “Ye already sent me brother, Ern.” Darius looked coldly at the younger man and Duncan gulped. “Right away, Sergeant,” he said quickly, and then took off at a run.

  Gritting her teeth Falon nudged urged her mount forward and back to the head of the column and then motioned Darius forward with her hands.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” Darius asked.

  “Should we continue forward in column or wait for Smythe and his men before advancing?” she asked quietly, trying to ignore the pain every time the saddle shifted from side to side with the movement of her horse.

  Darius hesitated. “Militarily, the safest option for this unit would be to wait for reinforcements to take the battle up the vale and advance in concert,” Darius said in a low voice,
gesturing to either side of the trail to make his point.

  Falon nodded her head in understanding.

  “On the other hand, there aren’t too many army Generals who will thank the point unit for shrinking back from pursuit and stalling out the whole army after repulsing an small raiding party,” the Imperial continued. “Talk of shamans, when we have our own wizard to run them off, will likely fall on deaf ears. And in truth, for all we know there are now less than twenty barbarians attempting to block the advance of the entire army.”

  Falon clutched her reins in a death grip.

  “We need no accusations of cowardice,” she mumbled before making a decision. She straightened in the saddle and turned her horse, sweeping the men of the column, or at least those she could see, with her eyes. “We advance!” she called out in as clear and carrying a voice as she could manage, with every deep breath causing a stinging sensation in her side.

  The men let out a sigh and the Sergeant pursed his lips grimly.

  “Whatever pace and formation you think appropriate, Training Master,” Falon said to him pointedly.

  “Not much we can do in a small trail, winding between a gap in the mountains like this,” Darius said before clearing his throat. “We continue in column formation at the slow march,” the Swan Sergeant called out, “keep your spacing tight and your eyes to the underbrush. If we see any of Gearalt’s men we’ll detail a pair of men to bandage and guard them until a wagon catches up with us.”

  The men pointed their spears to either side of the trail, that was supposed to be a road, and hurried back into position.

  “Forward march!” the Imperial commanded.

  “Until a wagon arrives?” Falon asked curiously, as there was a wagon at the back of their own company sized formation.

  “Our wagon is for our boys; we’re not going to have the space,” Darius growled. “Besides, those lads made it a point that they don’t care much for us, or the wagon. I aim to accommodate them, so we’ll detail a pair of men, like I said. That’s proper.”