Across the fray, p.5
Across the Fray, page 5
part #5 of Jon Oklar Series
Hadley took out two curse stones from her pocket. “Do you want to take them with you?” she asked me. “I am aware they might be sensed and used before you could throw them, but I thought I would ask anyway.”
I closed her hand around them. “I think that risk is too great.” I had to maintain my ability to cast. Leon and I would likely be overwhelmed if one of Rohaer’s mages enabled the curse before I could get rid of them.
“Please be safe,” she said.
“Jon, let’s go,” Leon called to me as he stood at the broken-down gate of the fort.
My peers wished me good luck and echoed Hadley’s wishes for me to be safe as I rushed over to Leon, my armor clanking.
“How are we supposed to sneak up on Rohaer like this?” I asked with frustration as I met Leon.
“Rohaer won’t hear shit once the battle starts. That’s when we fly in. Just take us a hundred yards into the woods that way.” He pointed, then went around me and climbed on my back.
I could barely get my arms around his legs as our plates grated. “I hope you have a good hold,” I said, “because I don’t.”
“Just get us there quickly. If I fall, come back for me. Go now, Jon. Go!”
The extra weight immediately put a strain on my mind as I launched us forward.
I was used to hurling myself high into the air and allowing myself to drop somewhat before throwing myself forward again. Now however, I had to keep pulling us up as I propelled us. It was difficult to stay level above the ground this way.
It didn’t take long for us to pass through the clearing around the fort and reach the trees, where the woods were thick and branches threatened us at every moment. I propelled us forward with one part of my mind and swung us left and right with the other, avoiding trunks as best I could. I was startled when my shoulder bumped against one of them and we spun away.
“Watch it!” Leon hissed as I straightened us out, only to narrowly avoid another tree.
“Slow down,” Leon urged.
“I can’t,” was all I managed to get out. Using dvinia to move two people the size of me and Leon, with all our armor, was a balancing act as much as it was a feat of strength. I didn’t have it in me to keep us at a low level, avoid all the trees, and maintain a slow speed.
When a large cluster of trees and branches came into my view, I decided to let us down before Leon told me to.
“I’m landing!” I said moments before our feet could touch.
I let go of Leon as I attempted to run to keep my balance, but my feet tripped over Leon’s and soon the two of us were tumbling through the forest.
I didn’t see what happened to Leon, but I struck a tree with my back and came to a stop. I looked over to see Leon in a similar position. He seemed pissed off as he stared at me, neither of us moving as we waited to see if we had been heard.
All was quiet.
He got himself up. “Hell of a way to get started, Jon.”
“It’s the armor,” I complained.
“You’ll be thanking it soon enough. Come on. We need to get closer.”
We tried to keep the clanks of the armor to a minimum as we walked through the forest. The plate mail was loud, but we could soften the noise by going slow. The most difficult part, it turned out, was not brushing up against any bushes or stepping on any dried leaves.
Eventually Leon decided we were close enough. We waited here rather than further the chance of being heard, but where were we?
I could only see trees around us. The night was dark. There was a light to the south, where I figured Rohaer to be finishing setting up, but I couldn’t discern how far away it was.
Failina had said earlier that Valinox seemed to be moving his army into a clearing. It was probably where the woods ended and the road began. That would give them enough space to maneuver. Some of their soldiers must’ve migrated into the forest, for their army was huge in number. That meant we would likely be spotted on the way to their center.
“As soon as it begins,” Leon whispered, “take us into the fray. We will stay close enough to hear each other. Always be moving away from Valinox. Try to keep your back to the north so no arrows can penetrate your face or throat.”
“How will we know when to leave?”
“There’s no way to know. We might not be able to last more than a minute. If that’s the case, you’ll have to get us out immediately. I’ll yell ‘Gwen’ if it’s time to go. That way, they shouldn’t figure out we are trying to escape and impede us.”
“All right, but why Gwen?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just be ready.”
We fell silent as we looked south and waited. I knew the name “Gwen,” but I couldn’t remember how.
Then it hit me. That was the name of Aliana’s mother. She and Leon had seemed to share an immediate attraction when they’d met. It had bothered me a little, only because it proved that Leon was capable of being nice. But it bothered Aliana most of all. She forbade Leon from asking her mother to dinner, and surprisingly, Leon had listened.
I supposed Leon wanted to use her name to signal an escape because he would want it to be the last word he spoke if we were to die.
“Incoming arrows!” shouted someone ahead of us.
“Shields up!” responded Valinox.
All my distractions faded away as I remembered why I was here. I was about to risk my life to fight these men when I could’ve been off healing all the sick people in Rohaer and stopping the spread of the pox before it reached Lycast. I remembered the effect of dteria on the people of this army, who were intent on destroying our land for their own gain and ruining the lives of anyone who stood in their way. Even the forest here was different than in the north, a muddy smell to the air and a fog covering the ground. It was dteria. I would not forget again.
The patter of arrows slamming into shields rang out ahead of us.
“Now, Jon! Let’s give them hell!”
I charged in after Leon. We might as well have had bells attached to us with the kind of noise we were making, but I could barely hear it over the orders screamed between Valinox and his officers, the firing of the catapult and multiple trebuchets, and the slamming of the metal heads of arrows against wooden shields.
Leon and I broke through the woods and into the clearing. There were already a few people looking our way.
“The idiots are trying to charge through,” said one with a confident grin.
“Where’s the rest of them?” answered another.
“Doesn’t matter,” said the first as he looked to be preparing a spell.
An explosion hit the two of them—a massive fireball that must’ve come from Failina. She was surely back with our archers, so it must’ve been luck to strike the only people who had seen us so far.
It gave me time to spot Valinox floating above the army. He zipped away from us, and soon I saw why as he intercepted another fireball, this one about to hit one of his siege weapons. He caught it with a thick shell of dteria, and the fire quickly dispersed across his normally clear energy, coloring it red.
Leon and I burst through the smoke of Failina’s fireball as arrows rained down around us. One struck me in the side of my armor. Pain radiated through my arm as I stumbled to keep up my gait.
I didn’t bother with my feet anymore, lifting myself up with dvinia as I felt more arrows patter against my armor. I came down within a storm of them. I knocked down shields and broke the spells holding up walls of dteria. Men screamed as arrows impaled them.
“There’s two here!” yelled someone, but I wasn’t sure anyone important had heard him. An officer nearby was ordering his archers to fire. Another man was screaming for someone named Zaran to launch his fireballs. Other orders rang out to keep up shields and walls.
I looked over to see Leon charging into them and casting a spell of wind. A cluster of troops spiraled away from him.
There were too many people in between us for me to keep my eye on him, but I had to make sure I stayed close. I had to be even more aware of Valinox. He didn’t seem to know that we were here as he floated and made a thick wall of dteria that blocked a dozen flaming arrows.
I kept my back to the incoming arrows as best I could as I pushed through the army. I moved in the same direction I expected Leon to be moving—toward where the army was most dense. I weaved around soldiers watching the sky, blasting them in their stomachs and backs with dvinia and knocking them into each other. I heard arrows sinking into flesh.
“Another fireball from Failina!” called a man.
There were others crashing down, but none as large as this. Valinox sprang forward through the air to put himself beneath it as he created a barrier of dteria above him. Even he couldn’t hope to catch it all, as shards of fire bounced off. None had a chance to do any damage, however, as shells of dteria from his sorcerers below caught them all.
I veered away from Valinox. I had my sword with me, but there was no reason to use it. I hardly even needed to aim as I cast dvinia in every direction.
Some men shouted that there was a traitor. Others, more accurately, shouted that someone from Lycast was here.
I wasn’t sure if people didn’t believe what they heard or they simply couldn’t hear it, but no one seemed prepared to stop me as I worked my way through the massive army of thousands. Almost all of them had their eyes to the sky.
I took a moment to look over my shoulder. A wide path of fallen men impaled by arrows was left in my wake. I realized that I was already used to the patter of arrows against my armor by then. It felt like being pelted by small rocks, much of my armor now dented and scraping into my limbs as I moved, but I was too bloodthirsty to care.
Someone with a voice made for screaming yelled out, “Two fuckers from Lycast are here in full plate! Kill them!”
Everyone in my vicinity started looking around, their gaze sticking to me as soon as I was found. A couple of them motioned as if they would cast at me. One caught an arrow in his shoulder, but the other did manage to form a spell. I blocked him with a barrier of dvinia, feeling his energy trying to grab me around it.
Sensing that someone was probably about to tackle me from behind, I turned and stabbed my sword. My Valaer steel went through the man’s leather armor as if it were paper.
I pulled my sword out as I turned and swiped at anyone daring to come behind me again. My blade caught one man in the stomach and stopped in the arm of another. I was just pulling it free when an intense force of heat at my back launched me through the air, the sound of fire exploding behind me.
I caught myself in the air and managed to spot Leon blowing a half dozen men away from him, then putting his arm above his face and turning as he saw arrows coming.
I cursed as I knew what was about to happen. Unprotected in the air, I tried to get down as quickly as possible but it was too late. Arrows rocked my back and threw me to the ground.
As I landed, something cut through the side of my throat. My blood poured out. My armor must’ve come up when I hit the ground and someone had stuck their blade through me.
This was it. I was going to die. I tried to get away from my attacker, but his blade seemed embedded in my throat. All I could see was red as I choked on my own blood and it splashed into my face. I noticed then that hands were on me, trying to hold me still.
“Jon, you’ve got an arrow through your neck!” Leon ripped the arrow out. I coughed out a mouth-full of blood and struggled to breathe.
“Heal yourself!” he yelled, then pushed me down and stood behind me as arrows pelted his back.
I didn’t have the concentration to see what was happening as I put my hand over the wound. I had cast the healing spell thousands of times but never when I was choking on my own blood. I felt my life slipping away too quickly. Fear overwhelmed my ability to focus.
Leon jumped away from me as I heard his sword clash with something. Someone else saw me on my knees, now unprotected, and rushed toward me with a sick grin.
But arrows continued to rain down, and one went through the front of his neck. He fell to his knees in front of me as he made a choking sound, dropping his blade and reaching out toward his fellow soldiers as if for help. Everyone was too busy protecting themselves from the onslaught of arrows.
I was not going to die like he was.
I stopped trying to breathe and held everything in, blood and air, as I quickly closed the wound on my neck and repaired the internal damage to my throat. Then I coughed out another mouthful of blood and turned to find Leon blowing away a couple of men with wind.
Valinox landed.
Leon aimed his palm at the demigod of dteria and let out a jet of fire, but Valinox blocked it with a shell of the now red and orange energy. Valinox pushed the flaming barrier into Leon, knocking him backward and causing his armor to smoke.
Valinox turned to me and lifted his hand as if to cast, but an explosion turned both of us toward the nearby trebuchet. One of Failina’s fireballs struck the launcher mechanism, detaching the device as the whole siege weapon flipped over and crushed a couple people too slow to get out of the way.
I noticed a number of flaming arrows finding new homes in the catapult as well. Then there was a loud crack as the massive bolt of our ballista broke through a thick plank of wood of the other trebuchet, collapsing one side of it.
Nice shot, Michael.
Valinox started to lift himself toward his falling siege weapons, but I grabbed him with dvinia and pulled him back down to the ground hard enough for him to somersault a few times.
Valinox was immensely stronger than me. I had only been successful because he hadn’t expected it.
A glance behind me showed men rushing at me from every angle. Arrows from the sky took down one, and I saw a fireball incoming as well, but it looked like…yes, it was coming straight for me.
I made a barrier of dvinia high above my head and angled downward. The fireball ricocheted off and landed a few yards in front of me, erupting on top of two of Rohaer’s soldiers.
“Gwen fucking Forrester!” Leon yelled as he leapt on my back and cast another jet of fire at Valinox. The demigod was forced to block Leon’s spell rather than grab us as I wrapped dvinia around my waist and hurled us north as hard as I could.
“Jon, the arrows!” Leon warned as we flew into them.
I couldn’t possibly hope to dodge them all. “Make a barrier!”
Leon made another jet, this one of water, as we shot through the thick storm of arrows. His gushing water knocked all the arrows away from our trajectory.
A couple of fireballs whizzed by. I turned my head to watch them land among Rohaer’s now scattered army. Patches of fire spread among the hundreds of bodies. There was only one siege weapon left standing, a flaming catapult.
Valinox soared after us, his face all twisted up as if it was only vengeance he cared about now. He was faster than I could ever hope to fly, and that was without Leon on my back. A shell of dteria in front of him caught many arrows. I noticed Leon looking back as well.
“He’s catching up, Jon!”
“I can see that!”
I looked ahead again. Our fort had no walls left standing. Even the watchtower in the middle was now a pile of rubble. But among the scattered pieces of wood where the southern ramparts used to be stood Michael and the ballista that still seemed completely intact, as if it had fallen but not broken.
“Archers hold!” I heard Byron yelling from somewhere among the rubble in our fort.
“Hold!” the order echoed among our groups of archers a good distance ahead.
Valinox closed in as I let gravity help take us down as fast as possible.
Leon screamed in horror.
“I’ve got us!” I assured him.
“No, Valinox!”
I looked back once more to see that Valinox was grabbing Leon by his hair as he, too, fell with us like a sack of rocks. I didn’t know what had happened to Leon’s helmet, but it was gone.
Valinox looked more beast than man as his brown hair stood up on his big head and his dark eyes blazed with fury.
Leon cast, but his fire spell formed above everyone’s heads and left a trail through the sky. We were falling too quickly to get a spell between us and Valinox. The demigod pulled Leon’s blond hair, dragging himself closer. Producing a knife, Valinox seemed more intent on killing Leon than ensuring he landed safely.
I considered letting all of us hit the ground hard enough to kill us. It might be worth it to sacrifice ourselves if it meant Valinox would finally be gone, but I had seen him fall from a good height before and he had survived. He might do so again.
With the ground coming at us imminently—and as Valinox drove the dagger into Leon’s chest—I slowed our descent so we could survive.
Valinox suddenly jutted away from us.
We were too close to the ground for me to make a blanket of dvinia and expect good results, so instead I made a wide barrier beneath us and moved it forward as we struck it. The dvinia took our downward momentum and shifted it forward. We moved so fast that we nearly slid off it, but I managed to wrap the dvinia around us and hold us up.
We shot over the heads of our archers and toward Michael, who stood behind the ballista and looked ready to fire. It seemed as if he was aiming right at us.
“I can’t shoot Valinox with you in the way!” he yelled as we flew toward him. I tried to pull up, but the force of our speed was impossible to overcome. All I managed to do was get us a foot higher as he ducked to ensure we didn’t take his head off.
We landed hard among the rubble of our fortress. Leon separated from me during the tumble. When I came to a stop, I rushed toward Leon as the sound of the ballista firing turned my head for a breath. I watched the massive bolt fly through the air after Valinox as he retreated, missing just a bit and seemingly startling the demigod as he swung the other way and looked back for a moment.
The fire on the other side of the woods lit up the sky just enough for him to turn into a small silhouette before he eventually disappeared beneath the trees. I bent down over Leon and pulled out the dagger in the top of his chest.
