“I have in mind to blast her and everyone else there straight back to Nethug himself…” Harald snarled, turning to throw a pointed glance at the gunboat still cruising close in to shore, not five hundred metres away. “The rest of Third Cavalry should be in position any moment now, in any case… does the Crystal give you the power of an exact position?”
“Right here, as I said…” De Lisle replied tartly, not pleased with being asked to repeat himself. South-eastern corner of this crossroads with Stewpot and the trail leading up to the castle; my sight of them was clear – are your maps as accurate?”
“Accurate enough,” Harald growled, bridling at being spoken to in such a manner but wearing it for the time being, knowing no good would come of antagonising The Brotherhood. “Dirty: mark the range for Thunderbolt… I want shells falling on their heads in five minutes!”
“Your Highness…!” the king’s second-in-command answered immediately, leaping forward to the table with a ruler and pencil already in hand.
General Bertram ‘Dirty’ Deeds was a tall, solid man in his early forties whose wartime experience was well displayed by his scarred features and the three-pronged hook that had served as replacement for his left hand over the last ten years. His abilities as a fine tactical commander under Harald were matched only by an equal reputation for brutality: Deeds regularly spent the first hours after a battle roaming the field and personally despatching any enemy wounded with sword, axe or anything else that came to hand.
“I make it two thousand, three hundred yards south-south-west – grid reference A-H-fifty-five…”
“Good enough…” Harald grunted with a single nod. “Cardinal… if you’re strong enough now to pass on a simple message…?”
“I think I can manage…” De Lisle replied drily. “What about the rest of your cavalry?”
“What about them…?” Harald asked bluntly in return, caring not in the slightest; he had thousands of horsemen, after all…
Standing back from the main group and mostly forgotten by everyone else, Percy reached out with her thoughts as carefully as she was able, attempting to connect with the crystal hidden inside the robe pocket of the nearest of the surviving brothers, now standing directly in front of her. The mental equivalent of picking someone’s pocket, she’d taken to developing an ability to remotely link with the Shard over the last few months, initially just as something to pass the time during periods of boredom.
She called it her ‘psychic Bluetooth’ (pun most definitely intended), and it was coming in very handy now as she crept about on the fringes of the brother’s Shard Link, not a hint of expression on her face the whole time. There’d have been no hope had the thing been hung about his neck – the glow of it would’ve alerted everyone present to the illicit activity in progress – but the attempt was at least possible while the crystal lay hidden away inside his robe.
Eventually, she found the conduit she was searching for – the one Percy was mostly certain belonged to Nev – and gently opened her mind, letting it flow through her just as she had back on Rapier a few days before. There was no longer the confusion and uncertainty in Nev’s thoughts that’d been present on that previous occasion. This time there was just one emotion – rage – and it was coming through loud and clear. It was exactly what Percy had been hoping for and she was forced to catch herself before a self-satisfied smirk could make its way to the outside world. Silently forming the concept of what she wanted to accomplish in her mind, she reached out again and cautiously and carefully pushed Nev’s mind toward a stronger connection.
Charleroi fell to her knees, wailing with grief as the rest of the lowered their eyes in sorrow and respect and Nev, who’d seen the same clichéd act in so many movies, wept bitterly as she reached out with her right hand and gently closed Phaesus’ eyes for the last time.
“I – I’m sorry…” She mumbled, barely heard and knowing full well that nothing she could say could mean anything in that moment. “They – they blocked me… the ‘Shard Gods’ or… or… whatever they are… they blocked me from helping him… I could have… could have…” A sob wracked her body then as she was left speechless, fighting to retain control of her emotions, determined not to show any weakness.
The blast of a war horn met their ears, rising from somewhere to the north and sounding far too close for comfort. The lead elements of a far larger cavalry unit appearing seconds later from behind the nearest hill, approaching around that same bend on Stewpot Road. The horsemen rode jauntily toward them, all dressed in the cold, dark uniforms of the Blackwatch with lances held high and sabres at their belts as they cantered forward in two-abreast formation, bugles signalling their approach for all to hear.
Nev looked up with tear-stained cheeks as those horns sounded a second time, turning her gaze first to the king and then to Lester’s ruined body, and she suddenly found herself filled with a rage she’d never before experienced… a wild and righteous fury that drew not only from the wholesale murder of so many innocents that day but also on the long-suppressed anger of every slight and misfortune the world had handed her over her seventeen years… from her betrayal at Persephone’s hands right back to the death of her mother so many years before.
Be careful not to let it take control: I’ve seen what it can do… Percy’s warning echoed in her mind then, just as sharp and clear as it’d been in that dark room aboard Rapier. It can burn a mind to ash...
But her fury was so great now that Nev could think of nothing other than revenge… revenge over every wrong she’d ever suffered through, brought down against anyone who dared to stand in her path.
Feel for the connection… reach out… let it in… New thoughts called to her, strange and alien as if they came to her from somewhere else… some strange, unknown place she couldn’t identify. That fact might’ve worried her if she’d been thinking clearly at that moment, however every rational thought had already been swept aside by the rage overflowing from within.
Nev’s hair tie had come away, lost somewhere in the melee, and her long, brown hair now hung loose and unkempt both at her back and in her eyes. There was no point looking for the tie (with so many bloodied bodies lying around, Nev wasn’t sure she’d want it back anyway), and instead her hands searched almost instinctively for a spare, tucked away inside her jacket pocket. Deciding she needed more than simple elastic however, she then also reached for the scabbard of her katana.
She knew it’d be there (there was no way an authentic Sadamune would’ve come without one), and she found it exactly as expected in a small pocket carved into the outside of the saya, just below the weapon’s handguard. No more than fifteen centimetres long, the kogai was a thin wooden spike traditionally used for arranging a samurai’s hair. Drawing it from its socket, Nev laid the sword across her knees and reached back with both hands.
She approached the process almost as if part of a ceremony, using the moment of relative silence to focus her thoughts as she gathered her hair into a single thick band, then twisted it into a tightly-curled bun far different to her normal repertoire of preferred ponytails. Slipping the spike straight through the centre of the bun’s mass, she then used the remaining elastic to tie the whole thing off, leaving it positioned high at the back of her head with not a single strand hanging free to interfere with her vision.
With this done, she took the katana between both hands (one near the tip and one at the hilt) and lifted it horizontally, bowing her head for a moment with eyes closed and offering up a silent prayer the same way she’d watched Honda do at the beginning of every training session. Nev had no religion… she believed in no God that she might’ve sought out in time of need or trouble… and instead she gave thanks and respect to both the master swordsmith who’d created that superb blade she now held in both hands and to the sensei who’d taught her the skills that would now aid her in her time of greatest need.
Bugles sounded again – a distinctly different tune now – and the riders responded as one, dismou
nting and taking a collective step forward as one in every four stood back to collect the reins of their horses. Lances were staked into the ground, useless as a weapon for foot-soldiers in close quarters, and a half of the eighty that remained each took a knee instead, readying their longbows as the rest drew their swords and began to march forward at a steady pace.
The sparkling blue ball of Dragonfire that had enveloped Nev’s left hand as she’d struggled to heal the king had mostly dissipated in the moments of sorrow that had followed. It flared back into blinding existence now as she again reached out for her connection to the pendant and for the first time, Nev allowed it full access to her mind and strength. There was a low, almost infrasonic thrum like the sound something of immense weight being dropped to the ground from a great height, and as she rose slowly to her feet once more, sparks arced from her glowing left hand and crackled their way along the length of anything within range.
Arrows… front and flanks: reach, turn and twist…
Repeat…
Incoming blade: block. Parry and thrust…
Target to the left… turn, feint and strike…
A flood of almost subliminal images rushed toward her, filling her mind with a virtual slideshow of the coming battle, and she absorbed it all with a gasp of expelled breath that curled away from her lips in a faint cloud of condensation that was completely incongruous to the warmth of the afternoon. A chill rippled through her body at the same time, the shock of it producing a momentary look of surprise that morphed quickly into a predatory smile as she saw exactly how it was all going to go.
“They’re coming…!” William called as warning, taking up his own crossbow from the ground where it had fallen earlier and awkwardly drawing back the string with his good hand to reload.
“Let them come…!” Nev snarled, vaulting cleanly over the barricade as the rest of them turned toward her in horrified surprise, and with that ancient blade in one hand and her other a crackling ball of blue fire, she marched straight for the Blackwatch cavalry with nothing but hatred in her eyes. “You want ‘em so badly…?” She screamed, breaking into a run. “Come and get ‘em, you bastards…!”
“Nev, no…!” Godfrey shouted, not close enough to stop her as she’d gone over the barricade. “For Crystal’s sake, wait…!”
“Dragonfall take us, boy… is it an invitation you need…?” Randwick snarled, drawing his own sword and clambering over the logs after her with surprising speed considering his wounds. “If this day is our last, then let it at least be an honourable one…!”
“Ah well…” Godfrey signed in resignation, throwing one last glance over to where Lester still lay and taking a discarded sword from the ground near his feet, “guess I’ll be seein’ y’ soon, little brother…” With a whoop of excitement intended to boost his own courage, he threw himself up and over the fortifications and charged after Randwick,
“Princess… My queen…?” William asked searchingly, correcting himself at the last moment and torn between his desire to join the fray and his duty in ensuring her safety.
“Worry not for me, good sir,” she assured, forcing a thin smile below tear-stained cheeks as she took up a discarded longbow and a quiver full of arrows. “Do what you must… you’re of more use out there than anyone could be alone here at my side…”
“Your Highness,” he nodded, giving thanks as he tossed the crossbow aside and instead drew the sabre at his belt. “For Huon and the queen…!” William howled loudly, and he too leaped over in pursuit of the others, blade held high as he charged forward.
A ripple of shock and surprise flowed through the lines of dismounted cavalry as Nev appeared over that barricade of fallen logs and stalked toward them with a sword in one hand and Dragonfire sparkling from the fingertips of the other. They didn’t hesitate, lifting their weapons at high angle to compensate for the extreme range as they loosed their first volley. A mass of arrows hurtled away with a rattle and thrum of bowstrings discharging released tension, whistling softly skyward and then nosing down toward her in a shallow ballistic arc as forty black-clad swordsmen broke into a run toward the barricades with blades held high.
Arrows…reach, turn and twist… Nev recounted in her mind, already prepared as the roar of their charge reached her ears. She paid it no heed, her face a tight-lipped mask of concentration, and without missing a single step she reached up with her left hand and swept it from left to right as if intending to swat the incoming projectiles out of the air and toss them aside…
…which was exactly what happened…
A thin finger of blue-white lightning arced across the space between her hand and the incoming arrows, sweeping across their path in time with the movement of her arm and smashing them apart. Sprayed to the four winds, the incoming arrows were sent flying in all directions and plunged back to earth spread over a wide area as Nev ran on. A similar fate met the second volley moments later, although rather than be cast aside by a whiplash of blue-white light, these were instead dragged directly downward to fall upon the heads of the charging Blackwatchers that were almost upon her.
At least half of them fell beneath the unexpected assault, dead or down and screaming as they were struck by misdirected friendly fire. Several terrified archers tossed aside their weapons at that point and turned tail in fright, unable to process what they’d just seen but nevertheless certain a powerful witch was indeed coming straight for them.
Nev met the assault head on, charging forward at speed with Randwick, Godfrey and William a few metres behind her. The enemy’s charge had slowed dramatically as she’d drawn closer, many of the remaining Blackwatch troopers having by now also realised they were up against something very unusual in the shape of a young woman with one hand gripping a sword and the other engulfed in a ball of blue Dragonfire.
She met the enemy centre at full speed as the line began to fold in around her, releasing an elongated kiai that was more like a scream of rage as the katana came slashing downward, opening the chest of the nearest trooper in the line. The Dragonfire dissipated as she took the weapon in both hands, fading and spreading out into her wrists and forearms as she felt it flow back into her, once more sharpening her concentration and focus into pinpoint clarity.
Incoming blade: block, parry and thrust…
Even as he fell away, mortally wounded, Nev was already twisting to her right to block and deflect her next attacker, sending him to the ground with a kick to the groin and following up with a lightning-fast thrust at his throat to keep him there.
Target left… turn, feint and strike…
Spinning back around to her left and still advancing with every step, Nev thrust forward to draw the man’s sword out in defence, then whirled through 360-degrees to deliver a completely unexpected strike from the opposite direction, burying her katana deep into his left side before using one foot to kick it free again and move on to her next victim.
Two of them… too late…! Left and right...!
Two troopers leaped at her simultaneously from different directions and Nev committed herself to defence against the nearer on the right, raising her blade to meet his downward stroke even though she knew she couldn’t hope to avoid the second strike from her left. A flick of her wrist turned his sabre aside, the point tearing at the shoulder of her cloak as she lifted her left hand from the hilt of the katana and jabbed forward with her right, punching the swordsman hard in the face and sending him reeling backward.
Nev next turned to her left, using that moment of respite to deal with the attacker coming from that direction and registering surprise as she found him already down and writhing in agony with an arrow buried deep in his chest. Another arrow sizzled past to her right at that moment and felled another Blackwatcher, and as Nev quickly threw a quizzical glance over one shoulder, she instantly spotted Charleroi standing high atop the log barricade with longbow in hand and a full quiver over one shoulder.
“Tired already, lass…?” Randwick called with a dry half-smile from
a few metres to her right, laying into a pair of enemy troopers simultaneously with sword in one hand and staff in the other and grunting with every swing as pain lanced through his injured shoulder.
A guttural growl was all the reply he got as Nev passed a faint, unseen nod of thanks in the princess’ direction, then turned back to the battle and instantly slashed upward, blocking the swing of her next attacker and following up with a savage kick that shattered his kneecap and sent him falling backward in a crumpled, wailing heap.
Dodge, block, turn, side-cut...! In the blink of an eye, Nev had blocked the next assault and opened his stomach with a powerful slash. Feint, deflect left, sidestep right… strike…! A second later and she’d faked out the next attacker with a move to the left, wrong-footing him, then back to the right before slashing downward at his exposed throat.
Confidence growing with every successful attack, Nev’s blows and movements became faster and faster as her conscious mind began to fall back and allow instinct and muscle memory to take over completely. Of the forty men who’d commenced the charge against them, no more than a quarter remained standing, the rest either dead or dying. The sounds of the battle itself were horrendous, but the battle-crazed howls of charging men had been mostly supplanted now by the terrible screams of the mortally-wounded, and fear and indecision was now filling the hearts of those few Blackwatchers who’d so far escaped unscathed.
With Randwick, Godfrey and William to either side now, protecting her flanks, Nev had become an unthinking whirlwind of destruction, her blade flashing this way and that at almost superhuman speed as she carved her way through three more and the handful who remained finally turned tail and fled, their courage broken. Realising that the battle was lost, the rest of the archers ran too, many casting aside their weapons as they scrambled for their horses and rode for the safety of the bend in Stewpot road. Six more would fall with one of Charleroi’s arrows in their backs before they disappeared from view.
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