by Brent Reilly
CHAPTER 74
At the rally point, Billy found Princess moving from wounded to wounded, and kept away to not distract her. He found Prince, now conscious and badly burned. It must have hurt like hell. Billy scooped water from the stream and heated it for pain-relieving tea.
"We thought we were doing so well when they surprised us from behind. I turned and the damn blast hit me in the face," Prince explained as Blade fixed him up.
"That’s how I got so handsome," Billy whispered, his throat sore, his nose hairs burnt, and his eyes blurry from smoke. "Now you look more like me than your twin sister. Congratulations, you poor bastard."
“The crazy stunt you pulled saved sixty lives,” Blade remarked, almost angrily.
“Thanks for rescuing me,” Billy told her.
"I’ll not let my children lose their father like I lost mine.”
"I want that in writing."
Startled, she looked up and smiled. His ability to make her laugh really pissed her off.
Sweaty, filthy, and stinky, Blade still looked great. Princess once showed him images of Blade a decade ago and he was almost dumb enough to tell his fiancée that Blade was the best looking blond he had ever seen. He could hardly blame Princess for sleeping with her. If Blade and Princess could somehow reproduce, their kids would probably look like Greek gods with great tans.
Pushing away the pain, Prince looked up at Billy like he didn’t recognize him. “You really do love my sister.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You don’t know how much you care for someone until given the opportunity to kill or die for them. You knowingly threw your life away, so you must love her so much that you cannot live without her.”
Prince may as well have peed in his face, the way Billy reacted. He kept blinking as if his eyes didn’t work. That’s when Billy knew he was screwed. He knew he loved Princess, but he never pondered the depth of that love. He apparently didn’t follow his father’s advice by falling in love with someone wonderful. Now he’s vulnerable because her safety will warp his tactical judgment, and if he ever lost her, he’d become a shell of a man like his father after his mother’s death. Which he expected to happen. Hell, it almost happened tonight. Billy was surprised he survived for so long, given that he feared death from withdrawal more than death from battle. He remembered his father’s last two years -- that’s what I’m gonna look like soon, Billy realized. Unless he died before her. He didn’t know which fate was worse.
“Well, that’s why I’m gonna marry her.”
“If you wanted to marry her, you’d have done it by now. But at least I know your true feelings for her. You may never actually take her to the alter, but if you do, you have my blessing.”
“I want that in writing, too.” Billy needed to know something. “The day we met, did you fight me because you didn’t like me or because you didn’t want anyone with your sister?”
Prince smiled through the pain at the memory. “For years I threatened everyone who wanted my sister, so I couldn’t give you a free pass. I also couldn’t challenge a better dueler, so I had to punch you or else everyone would know how much you scared me.”
“I scared you?” Billy asked, shocked.
“My sister’s bodyguards recorded those thousand guys you dueled that day in Barcelona. Just watching exhausted me. I’ve dueled since I was ten, yet you clearly fought far more than me, although I knew you were younger. And don’t get me started on the scars. You must be a masochist to endure so much.”
Just really addicted, Billy thought to himself. “Bodyguards?”
“Every guy thinks he’s her big brother. Everyone loves her, while nobody likes me.”
“That’s not true. Blade likes you.”
Billy backed up so Blade’s punch missed him. He looked over and saw Princess, on her knees in the mud, fighting for Zulu’s life, an obnoxious man she didn’t even like. She thought nothing of how much this would drain her while thousands of enemies camped just minutes away.
The guys claimed she was the world’s best female dueler, but he never paid it much attention until now. If she had not dueled for the last decade, she would not have survived that last fight. Billy knew he loved her, but he never dreamed he’d respect her so much. He always knew his wife was amazing; he just now realized she was awesome.
“Your sister is a damn hero,” Billy concluded, surprised at his surprise.
That startled Blade, who also now looked at him like she no longer recognized him. Which, considering he never showed his face, seemed odd.
“You need another helmet,” Blade told him. “The one on your head died, saving your life. How is it that you’re not dead?”
“When I become completely still inside, I can see one heartbeat into the future. Well, not exactly see. But something compels me to move suddenly, like a sixth sense foretells when something lethal is about to strike me.”
He had never mentioned this to anybody before. Not even his parents.
He took the burnt metal off and nearly fainted. Something sharp cut deep into the top. Well, that explained the headache. He fingered his scalp and felt blood flow down his face. He closed his eye just in time as blood dripped off his chin. Uncle George’s suits saved him again. Billy couldn’t even remember the blow.
“I’m leaking.”
“Take mine,” Prince said, handing him a helmet. “That’s the least I could do for you saving me.” Prince looked ready to cry. "Princess wouldn't leave me, and Tiny wouldn't leave her. Even after they got Diva, Zulu, Crotch, and Geneva. Even pregnant, that arrogant bitch Mali almost died protecting me, and she despises me. The Mongols saw victory and charged. Another minute and they’d have killed us. Then you screamed and the fight turned upside down. Even through my burning flesh I could see the naked fear in their eyes. I have never known someone who could terrify veterans like you do. Not even Genghis Khan wielded such power.”
“Stop turning me on,” Billy joked. “Unless Blade is into it.”
Prince closed his eyes to better soak up wand juice. “I’ll make their families rich. I’ll tell their children that their parents were heroes. And I’ll one day make the same sacrifice. Princess and I are from a city called Philadelphia. It means love for one's brothers in arms."
"I gave him a lot of painkiller," Blade explained, as Prince rambled on.
“I better leave before he breaks out in song.”
Despite herself, Blade laughed. She didn’t know whether to curse him or herself. It’s hard to stay miserable with him around.
Drenched to the bone, the world’s best flier struggled through the mud and waited until Princess finished stitching a wound before stepping into view. Visibly pregnant, she looked up despite the rain, face dirty, hands bloody, and her messy hair blowing in the wind. She was completely unprepared for his verbal assault.
“I never imagined the world’s most beautiful woman could become better looking, yet tonight you somehow did it. I want you to know that I’m in awe of you, and that I plan on marrying you as soon as I can.”
Like any good surprise attack, Billy disappeared to maximize the shock value, so he didn’t see her burst into tears. He walked off, trying to think of something witty to tell Prince, before he suddenly felt dizzy and collapsed, his eyes swimming. He spit out dirt and realized his leg hurt like hell. He found his lower-leg plate bashed in. He took it off and nearly shat when he saw the size of the welt.
“I have more bruise than leg.”
Blade explored the leg, ignoring -- or perhaps maximizing -- his pain, before concluding his leg was not broken. But then she found additional cuts, bruises, and burns. The more he undressed, the more wounds she found, until he was completely naked and feeling anything but heroic. He stood among thousands of warriors wearing nothing but bandages. The fearsome Red Baron appeared covered in toilet paper. By the time Blade finished bandaging Billy, the scrawny kid looked like a mummy l
ooking for his daddy. While the gauze stopped the bleeding, it also soaked up the rain, making his every movement squeak like a rusty wagon on a bumpy road. His dancing sounded like the world’s worst orchestra.
“You belong in a hospital,” Prince insisted.
“I belong in a museum,” Billy countered. “I look like I escaped from an Egyptian pyramid. Bear will start calling me the Red Mummy.”
“Go away,” Blade begged him with a smile, “before you make me more gay.”
Billy called his leaders together and proposed hitting the bastards again while they aided their wounded. Armor would ruin his bandages, so he stood before them dressed in gauze, boots, and Prince’s battle helmet, looking as silly as he felt.
“Go ahead and laugh,” he dared them. “I just wanted to prove I could become paler because we don’t have enough albinos. Come on, Bear. Wrap me up. Bandage my pride. Show me your best cracks.”
Instead, they stared at him silently with glassy-eyes, looking like lost puppies. Even Bear wasn’t coming up with any quips, and those were his specialty.
“Why are you all looking at me funny? Is it my helmet?” Billy joked.
“Us?” Bear asked. “Did you notice how the Mongols looked at you? You’d think the Baron was a kilometer tall.”
“What are you talking about?” Billy demanded, exasperated.
“We just compiled videos of what you did back there to save our wounded, and we’re all awed by it. We’ve never seen anything like it. You somehow paralyzed a few thousand Mongols by impersonating a giant fire serpent. I thought I’d gotten used to you routinely doing the impossible, but then you pull this out of your helmet. And what’s most unbelievable is that you don’t see it. You should be strutting like a peacock.” Bear gestured to his white bandages while getting one quip in. “Maybe it’s your new battle uniform that keeps you humble.”
Billy tilted his head as if he didn’t understand Bear’s flawless Mongolian. No one had ever mentioned the irony of rebels overthrowing Mongolia speaking Mongolian. Then he studied everyone else, who nodded their heads in agreement without losing their puppy-dog faces. He recognized it as hero-worship, but because he was so in awe of his father, he didn’t know how to accept it from others. Billy didn’t hide his impatience.
“I’m gonna go kill me some Mongols.”
They descended upon the Mongols like divine fury. They approached from the opposite side, but in a tighter skirmish line flying over the trees instead of walking for a faster strike.
They caught the Mongols as they either packed in the rain to leave or treated their casualties. They pierced the camp like a knife through flesh. They moved fast to avoid becoming fat targets, while cutting and slashing to wound as many as possible, knowing those wounds would soon become fatal. Like phantoms, they disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
At their rally point, Billy called another leadership meeting. “We can’t sleep in the rain without tents, so let’s hit them from above when they fly away.”
Everyone liked that idea. They even knew the enemy would head west, so the super-quads rode a circle 8 pattern above the rain clouds until a long shadow rose beneath them. Lousy visibility worked both ways and the enemy didn’t see them until Team Red stabbed them in the back with long blades. The bastards didn’t even try to fight back as a group -- they couldn’t see or hear their commanders anyways -- so they broke formation and scattered like rats. Every warrior loves a cheap kill. They wounded several thousand without suffering any casualties other than the common cold.
The rain stopped as dawn broke and Billy, although unable to get up, called another leadership meeting. “Find their wounded.”
They surrounded the enemy wounded in the dense woods and blasted until none survived. Then they swept the neighboring areas and found a few thousand injured Mongols hiding in small groups. Mali hunted them all day.
After eating breakfast from the enemies supplies, they slept nearly nude to dry out. They feared illness more than Mongols. A cold is nothing to sneeze at.
Billy slept all day and woke up the next morning barely able to move. He had been unconsciously sucking up wand energy so his body could heal itself. What was different this time was the number and severity of his wounds required far more juice than even he was used to. It felt like he slept in a warm salt bath with weights tied to his limbs. He looked like a drunk trying to get up.
“Kick me,” he begged Prince, who didn’t need to be told twice. Then he liked it so much he continued kicking until Billy rolled out of range. It took the teenager several painful minutes just to stand up. Everyone watched, and nobody helped. “What’s happened to me?”
Most of them had never seen the Red Baron scared before. It now endeared him to them.
“You’ve grown old, you poor bastard,” Bear kindly informed him.
“But I don’t have time to grow old!” the teenager complained with complete sincerity.
Blade laughed so hard she wanted to punch him.
“I know what he needs,” Princess confidently told everyone, using her wand to levitate him behind some bushes.
That afternoon they caught up with the enemy. Team Red weaved through the trees. Sentries sounded the alarm, but they were quickly overrun. Steel works better than blasts in the woods because it's easier to dodge fire than steel. The trick was to advance as far as possible before organized resistance pushed back. Then both parties trade shots behind trees, and no one dies. This stalemate negates the greater abilities of the better quad, and gives the advantage to the side with more shooters, who can flank.
But what it also did was expose the enemy’s back to Billy’s main force who attacked them from behind. The Mongols now found themselves between a rock and a boulder. With nowhere else to go, the Mongols flew up -- exposing themselves to the super-quads hovering above.
The battle soon ended with few casualties for the good guys. Four thousand quads destroyed a force five times larger.