The OP MC

by Logan Jacobs

  “Do not harm my horse!” Lucian shrieked from within the circle of swords. “I want that man off of Cotinus! Sir Saerus, see to it!”

  “He is so bossy, isn’t he?” I asked Cotinus as I urged him toward the crossbowmen.

  Since they had just been commanded not to harm the magnificent horse, the crossbowmen were just standing there like bowling pins just waiting to be knocked down. The three in the front were too slow to avoid being knocked over by Cotinus, and the metal crunching beneath his massive hooves filled the air like cannon-fire.

  “Form up, men!” Sir Owin, leader of the swordsmen, bellowed over the sound of the dying men in my wake.

  I brought Cotinus down to a trot and was nearly unseated when he bucked at a crossbowman that got a little too close to the horse’s rear end. One of his hooves crushed the man’s breastplate in, and I could hear him gasping for breath when he landed several feet away.

  “Oooh, that’s gotta hurt,” I laughed.

  The remaining crossbowmen dropped their crossbows in favor of swords and were closing in on Cotinus and me.

  “Get him off my horse!” Lucian screamed from somewhere behind me. “Get! Him! Off! My! Horrrsssseeeee!”

  One of the men approached me on the left so I drove the point of my shield down on his exposed neck. Blood splurted out when I dropped the shield, and as it clattered to the ground, I opened the wound up even more by driving my sword down with my full body weight. The man’s body slid right off my blade with a sickening squelching noise, and Cotinus sidestepped to keep the bloody mess from falling on him.

  I finally had a good vantage point of the battle, and I allowed myself a few seconds to glance around. The sun had made it over the tree line and was shimmering down on the massacre as though it totally approved of the bloodshed. Lucian and Sir Owin had split the swordsmen into two groups, and they were spreading out to try to hem me in again.

  “Look Cotinus,” I muttered to the horse. “They’re all so full of hope and happiness right now. Isn’t that so nice?”

  The horse’s ears pinned back and pranced a bit as one of the crossbowmen grabbed my left leg.

  “Oh, there you are,” I said to the man as if I had been expecting him because obviously I had. “Ready to dance?”

  I pulled on the right side of the reins and urged Cotinus to spin around. The man was able to hold on for a bit, but as the red horse picked up speed, he started to stumble. At one point his feet even left the ground for a moment, and it only took half a spin for him to lose his grip and go flying off.

  Right into one of his crossbow companions.

  The two went down in a screech of metal against metal, and I quickly urged Cotinus toward them. The horse pulled out of his spin like a champ, and when we reached the fallen pair, I pulled him into a rear.

  “Aaaaaaahhhhhh!” the two men screamed as a pair of heavy hooves came down on them.

  “I’m gonna have to give you a good washing,” I said to the horse as I looked down over Cotinus’ side and saw that his reddish legs were splattered with blood. “You deserve a good pampering after this nonsense. Maybe some apples or carrots?”

  Cotinus snorted a grateful sound that I assumed was a “yes.”

  The remaining five crossbowmen took several steps away from Cotinus and looked very wary about trying to unseat me again.

  “Looks like I’m gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way, my friend,” I said to Cotinus as I removed my feet from the stirrups. “Don’t wander too far, though, because I don’t want your former master trying to tear us apart again.”

  I leaped down from the horse’s back and faced the remaining crossbowmen with a grin. I wondered if I looked like some kind of God of Death coming to take their souls or something.

  “I suppose God of Time, God of Sex, God of Death, and God of Winning works,” I assured myself as I approached the five men. “I can have all the titles.”

  Now that I was on the ground, the five crossbowmen got over their fear and surged forward as a group. Their battle cries were soon joined with the clashing of metal as I parried two attacks in rapid succession. Another came from behind, but I knew it was coming, and when I spun around, I grabbed the blade with my armored hand and yanked it from the man before turning the sword on its master.

  His screams of pain faded into gurgling as he choked on his former weapon. Blood stained the tip of the blade, and when the man’s body hit the ground, blood oozed from his mouth and soaked into the ground.

  “This is more like it,” I said as I spun my two blades around. “I like the shield, but dual-wielding is the best way to go, don’t you agree?”

  I don’t think the remaining crossbowmen agreed with me, but they couldn’t withstand my flurry of attacks for very long.

  One poured blood out of his face as he fell to the ground, and another got to be a one-armed crossbowman for about thirty seconds before I shoved my sword through his neck. The last two tried to run away, and I guessed that they must be a pair of newer recruits. It was almost a shame to cut them down from behind, but I couldn’t let them run crying back to their liege lord, now could I?

  I tapped the blade of my feather sword and saw that its durability had dropped into the ‘teens, so I dropped it and grabbed a fresh blade from one of the fallen crossbowmen. I didn’t get a chance to check the stats as I noticed Lucian was heading for Cotinus.

  He was probably expecting the horse to just stand there so that he could mount him again, but I had learned a cool trick while training the magnificent animal.

  I pursed my lips and let out a piercing whistle. Cotinus’ ears perked up, and his head swung around to me. He trotted away from a very stunned Lucian, and he nudged me on the shoulder when he reached my side.

  “How did you--That’s impossible!” Lucian sputtered.

  “You taught me that trick, I’ll have you know,” I said to the man as I nudged Cotinus away from me. “He’s such an obedient warhorse.”

  Lucian let out a scream of pure rage, and I ignored him in favor of the remaining soldiers at my back.

  The swordsmen were forming back up under Sir Owin’s leadership, and the spearmen led by Sir Saerus had come within striking range. The green boys on either side of their commander quivered when I turned to face them.

  “Guess I should take them out first, huh?” I asked Cotinus.

  I leaped forward and easily dodged Sir Saerus’ jab. The green boy on his left followed up with his own attack as the leader was pulling away, but when I dropped my left sword and grabbed the shaft of his spear, he let go of it immediately. He took several quick steps backward to get away from me and fell to the ground with a whimper.

  “Get back on your feet, Asher!” Sir Saerus spat at the poor kid.

  “You could at least say please,” I scolded the man as I smacked him upside the head with my new spear. “Honey gets more flies than vinegar, you know.”

  Sir Saerus glared at me and jabbed his spear at me again. I darted away from him and swung my spear in a low sweep at the green boys on the right side of the wedge.

  One managed to leap over the attack, but the other two were too slow and dropped to the ground like a pair of rocks. The one that dodged the sweep tried to help his friends up and didn’t even notice the spear that suddenly sliced through the side of his neck.

  “Aaaaaaahhhh!” the two downed boys screamed as blood rained down on them from their dead friend like a summer sun shower.

  I silenced them with a quick thrust of my sword, and I grabbed my spear again from the growing pools of blood.

  “Surround him!” Lucian commanded the swordsmen. He was still trying to mount Cotinus, but the big warhorse kept stepping away from him. “This is impossible! He is one man! Take him down already, you idiots!”

  Sir Owin’s head jerked slightly, and I had to wonder if he was getting annoyed by Lucian’s back-and-forth commands. One minute he was leading a group of swordsmen and the next he was more interested in getting back on his horse. Any
decent commander knew better than to change tactics without good cause.

  Sir Saerus thrust his spear at me again, and since I no longer had my shield, I had to rely on my sword to break the shaft. It had taken me several attempts to make sure I struck the same spot each time I blocked his swings with my sword. The effort paid off after eight blocks, and the spearhead spun through the air as the shaft splintered.

  I dropped my spear and replicated the spearhead kill from earlier. The point buried deep into Sir Saerus’ face, and I had to yank my head back as blood and brain matter came splurting out of what was left of the man’s nose like a firehose. I waited until his leg stopped twitching before I leaped to my feet and pounced on poor Asher who was still on the ground.

  “Aaaaahhhh!” the boy screamed as I plunged my sword through his inner thigh. He lost consciousness as blood poured from the wound by the pint.

  The final spearman was practically pissing himself, and he gave a very pitiful display of trying to stab me with his spear. I quickly ran him through with my spear, and the blood seeping into the ground around the last group of spearmen made it look like this one spot on the battlefield had been hit with rain.

  “Only twenty-four of you left,” I sang to the swordsmen formed up in front of me. Then I whistled to Cotinus and leaped into the saddle when he reached my side. “Let’s finish this quickly, shall we?”

  I urged Cotinus into a gallop and raced for the formation of swordsmen.

  To their credit, they didn’t immediately break apart as Cotinus bored down on them. Their swords were essentially useless in stopping him, and since Lucian had already commanded them not to hurt the horse, they couldn’t slice his legs and bring him to the ground as I had so many attempts ago.

  I was riding a living battering ram and there wasn’t anything the swordsmen could do to bring him to a halt.

  The first man in the formation leaped aside as Cotinus reached him, but the men inside the cluster didn’t have as much room to move around. The horse knocked them to the ground and trampled several in that first sweep. Bone and metal crunched beneath his hooves, and there was a distinguishable streak of blood left behind as I pulled Cotinus around.

  “One more time!” I called to my warhorse as I urged him after a group of three men.

  The formation was completely broken. More than eight men were dead or dying from our first sweep, and although Sir Owin was trying to get them to form up again, it was clear that more than half were ready to desert and run all the way back home.

  “Kill Cotinus if you must!” Lucian finally relented as he pointed his sword at me. “I would rather he die than remain in the hands of this monster!”

  “Wow, some owner you are!” I shouted at Lucian as I urged Cotinus into a faster gallop.

  We ran down the three men trying to flee, and I brought Cotinus in a wide turn to the left. Then I dismounted in the tall grass several yards from the back of the army and gave the horse a pat on his armored shoulder.

  “Take a break, bud,” I said to him. “I’ll handle the rest.”

  I raced toward the bodies of the crossbowman and easily located my shield. I didn’t even slow my pace as I kicked it up into my hand, and then I leaped over several bodies as I made my way to the final dozen swordsmen intent on killing me.

  They were back in a proper formation with Sir Owin at the head and Lucian probably hiding somewhere in the back. They came roaring at me like a pack of wild dogs, and I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face.

  “I really am the God of Death,” I laughed as the line converged.

  I met Sir Owin’s attack with my shield and shoved my sword into the face of the man to my right. Blood droplets soared through the air as I whirled it around and sliced at a man trying to get behind me. He dodged away from me so I turned my attention back to Sir Owin and shoved him back with my shield.

  He met my attack with his own shield, and the low thud drummed through the air like a single heartbeat. He thrust his sword at the same time as a man on the left swung downward.

  I watched as Sir Owin’s wrist fell to the ground in a spray of blood.

  “You didn’t train that guy very well,” I pointed out as I parried a man on my right.

  His shriek of pain easily drowned out the sound of metal on metal as I parried and blocked several blows from each side.

  “Oh, will you shut up?” I complained to the man. I brought my sword down on his shield and then swept his legs out from underneath him. “It’s very unsporting to shriek in pain when the whole thing was just an accident!”

  Sir Owin knocked two men down as he fell, and I quickly thrust my sword up under Sir Owin’s exposed armpit. A sword was thrust at me from the right, but I was expecting it and was able to lean back at the last second.

  My breath fogged up the steel as it darted past my nose.

  I lifted my shield to deflect an attack on my left, and I thrust my sword into the groin of one of the fallen swordsmen. While he squealed in pain, I slashed the other downed man’s throat before rolling backward to avoid an overhead blow coming down on my right.

  “That leaves us with eight swordsmen and whiny boy Lucian,” I said to myself as I rolled to my feet. “Eeny, meeny, miny, you!”

  The man on the right barely had time to lift his shield before I was on him, and we went down in a clatter of metal-covered limbs. His sword fell out of his hand when we hit the ground, and I was able to keep his shield-arm down with my foot as I plunged my sword up through his armpit.

  “Seven,” I said as I selected my next target.

  The man let out a squeal and dropped both his sword and shield as I lunged for him. He attempted to keep me at bay by chucking his helmet at me, but that just gave me better access to his throat, and his blood sprayed across the trampled grass as his body crumpled to the ground.

  “Six,” I counted down.

  The next swordsman came in swinging as if he didn’t want to be known as just a number. I deflected his attack with my shield and knocked him backward with a shove. I followed him and rammed him several times until he finally lost his footing.

  “No, please, no!” he begged as I brought my sword down.

  The pool of blood splashing against my boots got even deeper.

  Swordsmen five and four went down when they both turned and tried to run and slammed into one another. They both fell face down, and all I had to do was plunged my sword into the back of their necks like poor Tedric.

  Swordsman three had dropped his shield to pick up another sword, but he clearly wasn’t as skilled as a dual-wielder as I was. His left-handed swings had very little weight behind them, and when I parried the second slash aimed at me, the sword went flying out of his grip.

  “That was just sad,” I said to him before slicing my sword across his face.

  The smile permanently etched on his lips spilled blood and brains all over the already soaked ground.

  “The buzzards are gonna feast tonight,” I said cheerfully as I turned on the final two swordsmen. “Just think. You could be fed to a bunch of hatchlings in just a few hour’s time!”

  They obviously didn’t like the idea of being turned into vulture-baby-food, but it wasn’t like I was giving them much of a choice.

  They didn’t give me a choice. The fuckers should have just gone home after I killed Lucien.

  They both tried defending themselves in vain and after only a few exchanges, their bleeding bodies joined the pile at my feet.

  Fifty-four soldiers laid strewn about the field, and the one who mattered the most was standing in the middle with his sword and shield hanging limply at his sides.

  “Th-This can’t be real,” Lucian stammered out as I approached him. “H-How is this possible?”

  “Haven’t you been paying any attention?” I asked as I strolled closer. “I am the God of Time. I can do anything.”

  “B-But that’s--You can’t be a god!” he sputtered. “Only charlatans claim to be gods!”

  �
�Then explain this to me,” I said as I gestured at the carnage all around. “How was I able to kill every last one of your men all on my own?”

  “I-I-I-I-I...I don’t know!” The whites of Lucian’s eyes were visible even through the grating of his helmet. “Th-This can’t be real! It must be magic!”

  “I haven’t learned how to use magic yet,” I sighed. “And don’t you think I would have destroyed you sooner if I did?”

  Lucian began to laugh like a deranged man. His eyes scanned the blood-soaked field around us as if it was all just a terrible nightmare.

  “I’m gonna end this now,” I said to Lucian as I took another step forward.

  “N-No!” he cried. His sword and shield clattered to the ground as he dropped to his knees. He tore off his helmet, threw it aside, and held his hands up in surrender. “I surrender! You must spare me! I will give you anything you want!”

  “And why would I do something like that?” I questioned him as I brought my sword up.

  “My father is very wealthy!” he announced as if it was news to me. “If you let me live, I will take you to my father and tell him what you have accomplished here.”

  “And you don’t think he’d be a little pissed off that I killed fifty-four of his good men?” I asked.

  “Well, he might,” Lucian admitted. “But I will make him understand your power, O Great One.”

  The duke’s third son bowed his head so low that the grate of his helmet was resting in a pool of blood.

  “I can make you the richest man in the entire world,” he assured me. “All you have to do is put your sword down.”

  It was hard to believe that this sorry excuse for a human once had me dragged from my wedding and hanged me in front of the entire town. That Lucian was filled with confidence and anger while the one before me now was just desperate and cowardly.

  I could never see myself begging for my life the way this man was, and any respect I might have had for him during our fight fizzled away like mist in the sunlight.