by J. P. Ashman
Sav forced himself to breathe and attempted to shake away the fear that threatened to take hold of him. He’d been in worse situations, much worse, but not with someone he cared so deeply for relying on him to aim as true as he needed. He’d taken the second bodkin and nocked it. The next rider pointed his couched lance towards Correia. Sav watched as the chevalier drew blood on his white destrier’s flanks with bodkin-like spurs, causing the animal to surge into a galloping charge despite the uneven ground.
Sav exhaled, narrowing his eyes, willing the rune-carved bow to do his bidding. He loosed the arrow at a seemingly impossible angle to strike the rider closing on Correia, yet the arrow arced and arced true. Whistling through the air along a sweeping trajectory, Sav retrieved the last arrow from the ground as the second split iron links on both sides of the rider’s maille-clad neck. The chevalier spun to the side, pulling his mount round in a leg-breaking turn that saw both crumple to the ground. A second horse screamed and a second man likely died; Sav didn’t pay attention after his arrow struck to know or care.
Sav cursed as he hastily released the third arrow at the dangerously close remaining rider. He cursed, threw his bow and ran towards Correia.
Goblins hooted and howled as they approached the action, boars snorting with the effort.
Correia turned as the second rider fell to Sav’s arrow; she turned, tripped and stumbled forward. Sav watched in horror as the third rider, which his arrow had missed through his fear and distraction, hung off the side of his high-backed saddle, war-hammer raised ready for the stumbling woman. An arrow from the hill glanced off the chevalier’s shield, another off his pointed, pig-faced bascinet as he brought his hammer down in a skull-crushing arc.
The chevalier roared and Correia screamed as Sav ploughed into her and sent her tumbling away from the swinging hammer. They were the last sounds Sav ever heard.
The hammer crumpled the side of Sav’s skull in an explosion of pain, and his world faded as he watched the woman he loved tumble away from him, her face contorted through terror and disbelief; he didn’t even have time to form a thought before the end.
Chapter 52 – Feathers and scales
Gleave watched as Sav fell, was hammered down; killed in the field below him. Gleave lay on the cart he and Fal had been helped into and screamed. He screamed in shock, horror and anger at himself and the enemy. He sat there, useless, too injured to assist as the enemy charged Correia. He looked to Fal, who looked back, a bitter sneer pulling at his mouth. None of the shock or immediate grief Gleave was feeling was present in that bruised, scarred and tattooed face. None of the anger and frustration and horror at what they’d witnessed, what they were witnessing. Fal merely looked at him and then back down the hill, seemingly in disgust.
‘Give me a crossbow!’ Gleave shouted, throwing his head this way and that, looking for someone who might listen, but all were engaged, either hastily harnessing and mounting winged beasts, or loosing arrows down towards the growing numbers of goblins approaching Correia. Gleave watched as her swords glowed through red and orange to white. White hot. He watched, impotent in his inability to help, railing at himself internally. He couldn’t even bring himself to curse aloud. He watched as, wails of loss and anger reaching his ears even from her distance, Correia surged to her feet, ducked low and turned from the path of the chevalier who’d slew their friend, his mount rounding in a tight circle to bring its rider and a bloody hammer to bear. The horse accelerated towards its target and screamed as its front legs fell away, crashing it face first into the ground, sliding as it went a little past Correia, who turned back as quickly as she’d turned away, driving the points of her curved swords down and through the maille covering the rider’s neck. Gleave watched the glow of the blades disappear into the man, halfway to the hilts. He watched the steam rise. Screaming, shrieking even, Correia withdrew the blades before shifting her stance and slicing at the corpse, ignorant or uncaring of the vile horde fast approaching her from the forest.
‘A crossbow!’ Gleave shouted again, although he doubted his request would be heard or acted upon. He didn’t even know if there was one. He felt the rush of wind as two of Royce’s Red’s launched into the air, off the hillside, atop their winged equine beasts. He watched them in awe as they glided down towards Correia, low to the ground, shadows darkening the dawn-bathed grass they skimmed.
A guttural roar pulled Gleave’s eyes up, past the bay pegasi, past Correia who continued to hack and slash at the armoured lump of meat like a butcher taking out her anger on a side of armoured beef. He looked up and past the goblins, to the treetops where great leathery wings preceded the mottled brown of a snaking tail. He focused on the beast’s head as bowstrings twanged, arrows thrummed.
‘We’re fucked,’ Gleave whispered, eyes wide as the approaching beast released another roar. Horses nickered and neighed, causing the brakes on the cart to squeal as they tried to drag the cart behind them to escape.
‘Wyvern!’ Captain Hud shouted, finally climbing her harnessed hippogriff. Gleave looked to her and wondered what match her and her remaining knights would be against such a beast. ‘Two!’ Hud yelled, forcing Gleave’s eyes back to the forest. He caught Correia slicing into the nearest goblin, its spear falling in two before it did the same. He watched the knights in red crash into the line of goblins, their mounts’ hooves and wings smashing the creatures from their feet whilst biting others. The knights skewered the enemy on fresh lance tips gifted them from Bratby’s camp supplies, then threw aside the long weapons to draw swords which smashed heads as much as cut limbs.
Amis was with Correia now, moving through a series of sword sequences like he was in the training yard, taking lives with every one or two moves as easy as a squire might best a page with a wooden sword.
Goblins fell in good order to the archers near Gleave, but it was the incoming wyverns, the second larger than the first, that stole Gleave’s breath. He cursed, looked to Fal who seemed to watch with interest rather than fear; fear for himself or his friends.
The shriek of Captain Hud’s hippogriff grabbed Gleave’s attention once more and he turned in time to see the woman release a swathe of what looked like pebbles from a bag on her mount’s saddle. The smooth white stones lifted into the air as if feathers on a breeze and scattered as if launched from a trebuchet: slow at first, before shooting off into the goblins, taking many from their feet.
Following the ranged assault, Captain Hud launched her mount into the sky, flanked by the rest of her knights. Their mounts’ wings beat the air as they climbed away from the pathetic arrows the goblins loosed at them. Royce’s Reds were flying hard and fast to regroup with the other two knights, who launched once more into the sky, swords leading, goblin corpses left in their wake. Gleave saw Correia and Amis fighting together in a retreat towards the small camp. He knew she’d be screaming within as much as without, for losing Sav and, now, for leaving his body behind. Gleave shook with rage and bit back a sob as he saw goblins stopping to hack, loot and pull at Sav’s corpse. He roared at them, everything else forgotten, as one of the goblins pulled down its trews and defecated on his friend’s body.
Gleave surged to his feet, or tried to, crying out in pain as much as anger and frustration as he crashed back down into the cart. Fal stopped him falling from the side. That was something at least, but the man seemed to watch on without any passion, anger, sorrow or fear, of the situation, if nothing else.
Gleave righted himself, shrugged Fal off and watched the sky in sickening horror as the wyverns collided with Royce’s Reds. A cerulean flash blinded him for a moment, and when he lowered his instinctively raised hands, to the accompaniment of equine and human screams, Gleave saw the smaller of the wyverns plummeting to the ground where it slammed into a dozen unsuspecting goblins, crushing them all. Gleave looked to Royce’s Reds and realised two of them had fallen in the time it’d taken him to raise and lower his hands. He caught glimpses of them amongst the goblins, of twisted limbs and wings; one
knight lost to the rising and falling of goblin weapons whilst the other stood, swinging his mace awkwardly, his injuries hindering his hopeless defence. A lucky arrow-strike saved the knight from one goblin’s spear-thrust; lucky considering it was at the edge of the war-bows’ range. The knight fell after that, too many spears and pole-axes for him to swat aside with his mace, which appeared to gain in weight as his swings slowed, inevitably opening him up to his death. Gleave heard archers curse from off to the side. They were running out of arrows. They’d sent a hail of them down into the massing enemy.
The remaining wyvern roared as it banked, approaching the three remaining red knights, who landed in a thudding of hooves and beating of wings to effect Correia and Amis’ exhausted retreat up the hill.
‘Run!’ Gleave shouted. ‘Run!’ His voice was hoarse now. He could see how close the goblins were; how close the wyvern was. The remaining arrows arced up towards the beast, which grunted as one found a soft spot. The grunt was like the impact of a trebuchet launched rock upon a wall, and the beast let out three more grunts in quick succession, causing Gleave to flinch at every sound; each flinch marked flashes of pain as he tensed at the same time, reminding him of his wounds and uselessness.
The wyvern crashed into the last two lance tips of the three red knights, snapping them like twigs as it bit through one, the other tearing through its sail-like wing, ripping a hole big enough to ride a destrier through. The large talons at the end of its two legs sunk one into the rider who’d torn its wing, the other into the pegasus of the knight whose lance the wyvern had bitten through. Gleave heard all four, mounts and men, cry out as they crumpled under the weight and blades that were the wyvern’s talons. He heard Captain Hud shout too, although her command sounded weak and he feared her magical release had taken more from her than they could afford.
‘Run!’ Gleave shouted again, to them all; despite knowing they needed no encouragement.
Goblins hung back now, loosing pathetic arrows at the camp, all of which fell short. They were as fearful of the frenzied wyvern as the humans. At least that was something.
Gleave looked across camp and saw archers stood, arrow-less and stunned at what came before them. ‘Help them up, you fools!’ Gleave shouted, wanting to have their energy and health so he could charge headlong into the fray to protect Correia. She was half way up the hill, swords shining steel once more – clean of blood despite the front of her, face and all, being spattered with the stuff. Amis was much the same, both armour and sword black with the lives he’d taken. He sucked in breaths and blew out hard, as did Correia as they powered up the uneven ground. The sound of chanting goblins, screaming pegasi, barked orders from Hud, and the deafening roar of the thrashing, snapping and lashing wyvern following them up.
Gleave sensed movement to his side and shouted for them to wait as the archers left the camp. None came to his or Fal’s aid. They just ran, and part of him couldn’t blame them. Correia and Amis neared Gleave’s position and Correia yelled at the archers to hold and make a line. Two obeyed, the rest fled across the fields, bows forgotten.
There was a concussive thud that Gleave felt in his chest. He flinched again, from the impact of it, and when he looked back down the hill, he saw the wyvern climbing back to its feet, surrounded by flattened, unmoving goblins in a twenty-foot cone from Hud’s position. The captain sagged in her saddle. One of her own rode up alongside her, his left arm hanging limp at his side, his bascinet’s visor lost and his face awash with blood. Yet he managed to stop his captain from falling. Gleave realised they were the only two left from Royce’s Reds. The pegasus and the hippogriff were well trained and ascended the hill, their reins loose. Gleave balked at the destruction, at the loss that had occurred in such a short space of time. He balked all the more when he saw the wyvern advancing once more, when he heard it roar as it tried to beat the air with its wings; the hole in one like the clipping of a hen’s flight feathers. It tried to lift from the ground and lurched to the side, crashing into the earth, its teeth-filled maw scooping sods of grass and dirt as it ploughed a short furrow. It roared again and rather than trying to take flight, locked its tiny eyes on its escaping prey and charged. Gleave knew it to be over. There was no way the winged mounts of Hud and her man would climb the hill before the beast reached them. There were no arrows left for the two stoic archers, not that it would have done much good against the wyvern from what he’d seen. The only fighting men and women left were spent, and—
A pathetic crow startled Gleave. The sound came from behind him and again from beneath the cart he sat atop. With a mix of joyous confusion, incredulity and fear, Gleave watched as Pecker emerged from beneath the cart on a wing-flapping ridiculous charge down the hill. She half-flew and half-bounded towards the ascending wyvern, its muscular legs propelling it up, its head low and neck straight like the biggest – living – ballistae arrow.
‘Pecker!’ Gleave found himself shouting as Correia and Amis made the cart. Gleave looked at Correia, but she didn’t meet his eyes. He noticed Fal glaring at her, but she seemed not to see that either. Fal’s eyes bore into her back as she took the driver’s seat, Amis slumping onto the bench beside her. As Correia relieved the break and snapped the reins, the cart lurched forward and Gleave rocked as he looked back towards the mixed sound of a roaring wyvern and a crowing, overgrown hen.
‘We won’t make it,’ Amis said, more to himself than anything, as he looked back past Gleave, who’d glanced at him.
Gleave swallowed hard and felt a shudder run through his body. His eyes welled and he failed to bite back a sob at it all. Hud and her man reached the top of the hill, where the wyvern closed on them, a hen the only thing between it and its prize.
‘So, this is it…’ Gleave slammed his fist into his own leg and raged against it all. Torn to shreds on the back of a fucking cart, my body broken and friends lost—
Gleave practically choked as he saw the wyvern lunge towards the tail of Hud’s hippogriff, the vile beast ignorant of the fat, brown hen in its path; Gleave practically choked as the flapping feathers and grass-flicking feet of his hen, his Pecker, exploded in a rapid expansion of wings and torso, beak and talons. Gleave gasped and cried out in both surprise and awe as Pecker grew in a flash of feathers and scales to barrel into and turn over the lunging wyvern, her now equal size a match for the reptilian beast. Her giant hooked beak and lashing talons ripped scales from flesh, dug rents of red into the brown hide of the wyvern. Her crow caused everyone to duck, be them men, women or goblins below, their renewed advance halted as the cockatrice tore shreds from the surprised wyvern beneath her.
Hud’s mount shrieked and bucked, and her knight’s pegasus attempted but failed to throw him because of the sounds coming from the titanic battle behind them. Bolting, with renewed energy, Hud and her man reached Gleave’s cart as he watched large scales and feathers fly; blood and flesh doing the same. The two beasts tumbled down the hill together in a fight like none he’d ever seen. It reminded him of the very cock fighting pits he’d rescued Pecker from. The fact that the so-called hen was a legendary, shape-shifting cockatrice… Gleave shuddered.
Their cart pulled away as fast as it could, Hud and her man riding close behind, with Mits and his remaining men running to catch up, their tent-laden cart and supplies forgotten. Almost all of them watched the continuing brawl between beasts below, but Gleave turned to Correia and saw that she looked not back, at what most of them couldn’t draw their eyes from, but forward, to nothing; to the road and nothing more. And he knew her pain. He knew the love she had held for Sav, and so it was, despite the cheers that arose about him as he turned back to see the scattering goblins below, that Gleave felt none of the joy the others felt as Pecker finished the wyvern with a stretching, tearing and rending of thick head from scaled neck. For Gleave had lost too much to rejoice now, even at the sight of his incredible pet turning for and running to catch him up, shrinking back to her former state as she did so, despite the lack of feathers and
open wounds she sported.
Chapter 53 – No matter the cost
Hud half-turned in her saddle as she heard footsteps approaching from behind the group. The movement pained her, and as soon as she saw who it was – as soon as she was satisfied it wasn’t a renewed attack – she faced forward and slumped once more, clenching teeth against the wounds she’d suffered both physically and mentally whilst battling the wyverns.
‘They’re not pursuing,’ Mits said, as he caught up to the cart and hopped onto the back. He started when he saw the battered and bleeding hen in Gleave’s arms.
‘It’s alright,’ Gleave reassured Mits. ‘Trust me.’
Mits nodded, although he looked far from convinced that the hen wouldn’t explode into the beast it had been and tear him to pieces.
‘Then we stop,’ Correia said, without turning from the driver’s bench. ‘Bind wounds. Make plans.’
Mits scoffed. ‘I say we continue and deal with such things whilst on the move.’
‘We stop and someone else might get left behind,’ Fal said, eyes boring into Correia’s back. He turned and snarled at a nudge and glower from Gleave.
‘Correia’s right,’ Hud said, slumped in her saddle, alongside the cart. ‘Your elf and the witchblade have a head start on us to Royce. We need to rest up and get you there too, Correia.’ The women met eyes.
Correia swallowed hard, her stern visage set in place, as if sculpted. Not a feature twitched or moved as she nodded her accord. After stopping the cart, causing gasps for air and prayers of thanks from the remaining archers who’d been dog-trotting alongside, Correia jumped off and approached Hud. ‘With me,’ she said. It wasn’t a request. She walked off the road, towards a standing of thick gorse, and Hud followed, or rather her mount did, Hud doing little to guide the intelligent creature. I need to take her to Royce and yet I’m struggling to stay in the saddle. She accepted the pain that came whilst leaning forward and stroking her mount’s feathered neck. The hippogriff let out a sound not too dissimilar to a cat’s purr. Hud knew it to be understanding from her mount.