by E. M. Hardy
Another branch showed him twisting in another direction, counterbalancing his weight by extending a leg and dodging the arrow. That branch, however, led to a sub-branch where an enemy rider slashed his arm with a downward stroke.
Hobogetur only had enough focus to view a hundred other branches, but he walked through enough branches to create a suitable outcome. He then locked his fate down into place, opening himself once more to the normal flow of time.
The Khan of the Shining Horde tilted his head an inch to the side, the arrow that would have burrowed into his neck instead grazing shallowly upon skin. He shifted his shoulders to follow the direction of his head, his heavy leather armor deflecting the downward slash of an enemy rider that pushed through his own horsemen with the sole intent of killing Hobogetur. He lifted the butt of his lance in front of the enemy rider, who caught the hardened length of leather-wrapped wood with his teeth.
The rider’s head snapped back with the force of the blow, knocking him out. The rider slumped in his saddle, sliding sideward before falling completely off his mount. Hobogetur quickly brought his lance back into position just in time to thrust it under the lance of another rider. He shoved the tip of his weapon through the enemy’s leather vest, piercing her heart.
Hobogetur breathed in deeply and refocused as he pulled back from the charge, winding time down to a near-stop once more. A few dozen trips through the branches of fate revealed that he was no longer in mortal peril. No more enemy riders would attempt to break through his horsemen, who handily brought down their enemies with simple but mysteriously effective attacks of their own.
It was a battle he and his people should have lost, to be honest.
The New Dawn Alliance managed to pull in two additional hordes into their mix, bringing their combined might up to a total of six hordes. They were now without a doubt the largest faction of Grass Peoples, having successfully beaten back their rival alliances that depleted their forces in a previous engagement against one another. They had an easy time beating down the rest of the hordes, fractured and weakened as they had become due to the power struggles.
The two additional hordes also gave them the numbers they needed to pin Hobogetur and his sworn brothers down while keeping Martin’s Mud Men in check.
Martin spread his two thousand Mud Men out along a wide line, threatening any bands bold enough to try and engage them in battle. Those Mud Men possessed enough power to inflict serious damage against the horsemen, which was why the enemy hordes no longer engaged them head-on.
They sent their riders just close enough to threaten a breakthrough should the Mud Men give chase, then pulled back before the constructs could actually reach them. This was meant to lock the Mud Men down, hold them in place while other hordes directly attacked the riders belonging to the Three Brothers Alliance.
The Three Brothers Alliance should have stood no chance, especially after it was one of the first groups to be targeted and weakened during the first year of the Horse Wars. The bolstered numbers of the New Dawn Alliance should have ridden down any opposition, trampled them under their hooves and buried them under thousands of arrows.
The hordes belonging to Hobogetur, Todogen, and Chuluun should have succumbed quickly without the aid of the Mud Men, collapsed under the weight of an enemy that pressured them on multiple fronts.
They did not.
In fact, the riders from the New Dawn Alliance seemed to just melt when they came into contact with the riders from the Three Brothers Alliance. They shot volley after volley of arrows, yet none found their mark. In the meantime, arrows from the Three Brothers Alliance kept downing targets with unnerving accuracy.
Lancers and skirmishers would clash together, and the Three Brothers Alliance would always—always—come out on top of each engagement. It didn’t matter if they were outnumbered or caught in between a pincer attack. Any force that they crashed into just… died.
The Three Brothers Alliance showed no grand displays of chi-empowered waves of force and flame, nor did they attack with the ferocious relentlessness displayed by the Mud Men. They didn’t fight with any sense of superhuman capability like the martial artists of the Empire. They didn’t even possess the blood-bound weapons slowly spreading out all over the land.
No, the riders of the Three Brothers Alliance killed their opponents with nothing more than well-timed attacks, striking true with each thrust while deftly dodging everything being thrown at them.
The two alliances of Grass Peoples fought for just a few hours, but it was clear to anyone watching that the Three Brothers Alliance simply outfought their numerically-superior enemies. The New Dawn Alliance eventually signaled the retreat, canceling their attack upon the settlement being set up by the Three Brothers before they lost too many fighting men and women.
‘So is the fighting done?’ thought Ukum to his rider, the panting horse breathing heavily as it surveyed the scene of battle.
‘For the moment,’ Hobogetur thought back as he patted the neck of his now-sapient mount, rubbing it affectionately as he let the thrill of battle wash over him. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘As well as I’ve held up in previous battles. Though I must admit I am still adjusting to this change, knowing and understanding things that I’ve never even thought about before. Thoughts, ideas, plans, fears, worries, hopes, and desires… do you two-leggers always see the world this way?’
‘Pretty much,’ Hobogetur silently admitted. ‘I must admit that it is strange holding this conversation with my horse. It feels… strange.’
‘Tell me about it,’ retorted Ukum with a snort, tossing his mane as he watched the enemy horde ride away. ‘One moment my life is simple, the next I have all these thoughts just crashing inside my mind.’
Hobogetur’s mount shivered underneath its rider. ‘I’ll be faithful to you, I’ll ride with you into battle, I’ll even do my best to keep the rest of the herd under control. Just promise me one thing, Hobogetur. Just please, please, please don’t eat me. I still have memories of you slaughtering all those mares during one of your campaigns, of the abject terror that maybe I’d be next in line.’
Hobogetur chuckled at his mount’s declaration. ‘Ah, yes. I think that can be arranged, especially now that we have good farmland of our own. And… you know… we’re actually talking to one another now.’
‘I’m serious, Hobo. I—’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘What? Don’t call you… Hobo?’
‘Yes. You don’t want me to eat you, right? Then do NOT call me Hobo. Hobogetur, Khan Hobogetur, friend, ally, brother— call me anything but Hobo.’
‘Oh. Uh, alright then, as long as you don’t cut me up and throw me into the pot.’
‘Although I may occasionally bleed you, especially when food and water are scarce.’
‘Oh, come on, Hobo…getur.’
The man gritted his teeth, sorely tempted to bury his spurs deeper than he really needed to, while the horse nickered and stamped a foot on the grass.
The Khan of the Shining Horde paused for a moment, pondering the fact that his horse was mocking him. Martin was right: meditating under those massive obelisks of his had indeed bestowed some mysterious powers upon him and his riders.
He remembered entering a space of consciousness, one that Martin called ‘centering himself’ as he focused upon the strange patterns engraved upon the obelisk. Martin said that the patterns were key to unlocking this thing called prana. He said it functioned similarly to the chi used by the Imperials, just utilized more toward bolstering a human’s strength and vitality instead of manipulating the energies of the world.
Things didn’t quite work out the way Martin intended.
Instead of unlocking the secrets of prana or chi, his people found themselves somehow linked to their loyal steeds. He distinctly remembered reaching out beyond himself, sensing a familiar mind probing from beyond his usual senses. He found that mind just as the mind fo
und him, and they linked together as one.
The Grass Peoples surprised Martin with this development of theirs, though he mentioned it being similar to the bonding used by other people—those born in the rumored deserts to the far south.
This link he discovered, however, conferred more than just newfound companionship with his mount. Their shared minds allowed them to tap into the currents of time, to ride down the different branches of fate to ‘see’ what was in store for them. Terror embraced both Ukum and Hobogetur the first time their minds met in a psychic explosion that sent them careening toward the near-infinite branches of fate before them.
Man and horse screamed together as one, panicking as they found themselves locked within their shared prison of time. They kept reliving the same moment from different perspectives, thrust into different branches of fate before eventually looping back to their starting point again and again and again.
They fought against one another at first, two alien minds suddenly and unwillingly thrust upon one another. They eventually realized what had become of them, of their prison of fate. It took a small eternity, but they eventually learned how to walk outside the branches of fate and return to the reality before them.
It was an experience that they and a few of the first batch of riders shared as they meditated under the obelisk. The riders and their bonded mounts screamed in endless agony until Hobogetur and Ukum discovered how to return to reality. The pair quickly turned toward their shrieking companions, guiding them through the process of returning to the present.
And thus was born the Fate Riders—man and horse gifted with the ability to ‘see’ into the near future, to find and ride whatever branch of fate they choose.
***
“Wow.”
That one word of shocked praise caused Hobogetur to fight down a cocky grin from forming on his face. He failed… miserably.
“Indeed, Martin of the Mud Men. Our riders have always been the best at fighting among all the Hordes. But this newfound power of ours… it puts my men and women on a whole different level.”
‘And horses.’
“And horses, or so Ukum says,” Hobogetur added with a gentle pat to the neck of his stallion.
The walker in front of Hobogetur nodded slowly as it examined both mount and rider with its featureless face. “Not a lot of casualties out there,” remarked Martin through the walker as its head swept out toward the scene of battle. Not that he needed to since dozens of orbs floated high in the sky, monitoring the enemy hordes as they retreated and regrouped.
“Yes, that is true. That was simply a probing attack to test our defenses, see if they can cause more damage than they take.”
Todogen nodded as his mount trotted besides Hobogetur’s. “They thought they could overwhelm us through the sheer weight of numbers, keep your Mud Men distracted while they wore us down. These new talents, however… they made all the difference.”
“Indeed,” barked Chuluun as his mount came cantering in. “It’s unbelievable, the possibilities open before us. I can’t believe we only fought for a few hours; it felt more like a few months!”
Hobogetur nodded at his sworn brother’s declaration, grunting against the mental fatigue of the experience. “I hear you there. Going through branches of fate takes a toll on the mind. I suspect that we wouldn’t last as long as we did if we didn’t share the vitality of our mounts.”
‘That much is true,’ agreed Ukum through their telepathic bond. ‘You two-leggers may be smart and all, but you’re pretty lacking in the stamina department.’
Hobogetur ignored the side-comment, instead meeting the blind stare of the walker before him.
“What are you looking at?” asked the Khan of the Shining Horde with irritation.
The tone of his barked question caught the attention of Chuluun and Todogen, though Martin remained silent for a few moments more.
“This is the part where I ask you to help me fight against the rogue constructs.”
Hobogetur grimaced, Chuluun winced, and Todogen flattened his face into a neutral frown. “You promised that you would teach us the secrets of chi and blood-binding before you would call upon our aid,” responded Todogen evenly, though he couldn’t quite prevent a slight hint of reproach from leaking out of his voice.
The walker shook its clay head. “More allies join us each day as word of the rogue threat spreads across the Bashri Basin. Even the Ren Empire, the Taiyo Sovereignty, and the Sahaasi Dominion are sending additional troops now that they see the seriousness of the danger before them.
“However, I would rather begin pushing back the rogue constructs sooner rather than later. We’re doing what we can to prevent them from spreading further, but they just keep coming no matter how many we strike down. Your new riders could prove to be a decisive force on the field. Your ability to fight so effectively, strike so boldly without fear of getting swamped, will prove invaluable in breaking the rogue lines and hitting them where it hurts.”
“We cannot commit our forces right now,” countered Todogen with a firm shake of his head. “You’ve seen what our enemies are doing. They’re no longer engaging your Mud Men, trying to destroy them. They have the numbers to pin your Mud Men down and the mobility to prevent themselves from getting tangled up again. If we commit what few Fate Riders we have to your campaign against these rogues of yours, we won’t have enough people left to defend our settlements from an attack.”
Martin sighed, the shoulders of his walker sagging in disappointment. “That is true. Your enemies are adapting, avoiding us where we are strong and striking where we are weak.”
Chuluun shrugged. “Don’t be surprised. That is the way of the Grass Peoples, though I think it’s just plain common sense anyway.”
“I have another proposal,” declared Hobogetur, a sudden bout of inspiration striking him as Chuluun’s words gave him an idea. “This ability we gained, the ability to ride through the branches of fate… it already gives us a significant advantage over our enemies.
“But it’s only the first step. Some of my riders are already grasping the concepts of chi, able to perceive the energies around them. Others are starting to learn how to coax their blood to life, feed trickles of it into their weapons. Still, others have found success in meditation, already identifying their centers and beginning to fill them up with prana.
“Give us a little more time to train under your obelisks, Martin. Once we gather enough talent, we will bring the fight to our enemies—subdue them so that they can no longer pose a threat.”
“Now wait one second here,” Martin countered hotly, his Mud Man suddenly straightening up. “I did not help your people just so that you can take over the Grass Seas for yourselves.”
“It’s not just that,” Todogen interrupted, shooting a glance at Hobogetur’s way. The Khan of the Shining Horde locked eyes with the Khan of the Gleaming Horde, understanding passing unspoken between them.
“Our enemies will not give us peace, not as long as they have the opportunity to probe our defenses for weaknesses. If we do not pressure them, make them submit, they will continue watching us as an eagle watches the hare. They will swoop down and attack at the first sign of vulnerability.”
Chuluun caught on quickly enough after that. “But if we instead reverse the situation, use our newly-acquired talents to beat them into submission, we free our people from the danger of attack. We might even be able to force them to fight with us against these rogues of yours!”
Hobogetur nodded at that. “Indeed. This is why I propose that we bring the fight to the other alliances, force them to submit the same way you have forced us to submit.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Martin spoke hotly, seeming to take offense at Hobogetur’s words even though he didn’t mean to give offense. “Like hell I ‘forced you to submit.’ You’re the idio… the ones who decided to attack, not me.”
The Mud Men may have no faces, but the spirit co
ntrolling them still spoke with emotion and feeling. That little bit of insight reassured Hobogetur somewhat, relieved with the knowledge that he was dealing with something vaguely human here.
“Precisely,” Hobogetur answered coolly, a sardonic grin plastered on his face. “We made the mistake of attacking you when we thought you were weak. We—”
“No, Hobogetur, don’t draw us into this,” chided Chuluun. “You were the one who thought the Empire was easy pickings. I and Todogen were fully against—”
“—thus paid the price for our ignorance when our enemies came for us in our weakened state,” Hobogetur continued, raising his voice and completely ignoring Chuluun’s truthful if irrelevant statement.
“This time will be different. Our newfound talents combined with your Mud Men and flying orbs give us enough of an advantage over the other alliances. Your constructs can defend our people, watch the skies for movement, while we ride for their herds and families.”
Hobogetur swore he could almost see the frown on the Mud Man’s blank face, the way it stiffened up at his proposal.
“Let me get this straight: you plan to do what your enemies planned to do to your own women, children, and elderly? To rape and pillage and enslave so that your enemies no longer have a home to return to?”
“Of course we’re going to—”
“Of course we won’t,” interrupted Todogen, who subtly lashed out with a foot to kick Hobogetur in the shin away from the Mud Man’s sight. “Understand that we of the Grass Seas do not fight battles we know we will lose. No Horde would ever accept a khan that willfully pushes their people to die a meaningless death.
“Our enemies have seen our new capabilities, Martin, and I am pretty sure they will no longer attack us as recklessly as they once did. They will keep watch and strike whenever they find a weakness to exploit, when we can least afford to be hurt. This is why we need to force them to commit to an engagement against us.”
“Or better yet, we could hold their families hostage and force them to acknowledge our superior fighting prowess,” chimed Chuluun, to Hobogetur’s irritation as his two sworn brothers started riding away with his inspired plan.