Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (63 page)

"Doubtless they have eaten hearts also," Jason said. "Do you think the Voice will be there."

"I pray not," Michael said.

"He was defeated before," Tullia murmured. "He can be beaten again."

"Without spirit magic?"

Tullia nodded, seeming utterly confident in her abilities.

"What's our plan?" Fiannuala asked.

"I would not want to risk trying to gain the height of the trees without first dispatching the enemies on the ground," Michael said. "But if we squander too much time on the ground we lose the advantage of surprise."

"Then we split up," Amy said. "I'll take care of the rebels on the ground while Jason supports me with his magic. You, Fiannuala and Wyrrin get up into the trees and finish off Meinir."

"Will you be able to cope without aid?" Michael asked.

"Yes, I can manage," Amy hissed with a hint exasperation. "I've got the heavy armour and I'm stronger than any or all of them. They won't take me by surprise this time."

Michael hesitated for a moment. He did not want to leave Amy to fight alone, but she was a naiad warrior and a knight, and he was but a poor Coronim slave, so who was he to seek to protect her from danger?

"Turo watch over you," he whispered.

Amy grinned. "I hope he is." She put her helmet on. "Ready, Jason?"

"I suppose," Jason said nervously.

Fiannuala knocked an arrow to her bowstring. "I'll help thin them out as you charge in."

"Thanks," Amy said. "All right then. One, two, for God and Seafire! Niccolo! Niccolo!"

Amy hefted Magnus Alba over her head as she charged out of the cover of the undergrowth like a maddened bull, roaring her warcry as she trampled down the grass in her rush to come to grips with the enemy.

Fiannuala loosed her bow, and a dryad archer fell dead.

Michael drew his swords. "Get ready. We move when I give the command."

God keep you, our Amy.

Amy bellowed as she charged; her sword shone as it caught the light fleeting between the tree-branches. The dryads and the warriors of the Rose sprang to action, swords drawn, spears readied, crying out with alarm as one of the rebels fell with an arrow in the eye.

More dryads were pouring out of the central holdfast, lining the walkways. Not as many as she would have expected, for a pretender queen waging a civil war – under the ocean the poorest coral outlaw would have been ashamed to boast of a following so small as Amy could see above her – but enough. Still, they were for Michael to deal with, and though she might pray for his success Amy could not help him in that fight. All she could do was win her own battle, and destroy these sentries and the rebel allies down below. And that she would do superbly.

An arrow glanced off her armour, and Amy laughed aloud as she closed the distance with her enemies. “Niccolo! Niccolo and Seafire!” The sight of the trees reaching towards the sky made her remember a time when she had been trapped in a watchtower with Undine raiders on the outside, and she added their battle cry to her own. “Who dare? Who dare meddle with me?”

A trio of fighters of the Crimson Rose looked as though they might meddle with her, but a stream of bolts of brilliant white shot over Amy’s shoulder to explode amongst them in a shower that engulfed them, blasting them hither and thither like fish when a volcano burst.

Nice of you to finally join us, Prince Jason,
Amy thought as her feet carried her over the ground and closer and closer to Meinir’s holdfast.

There were eight Crimson Rose warriors left on the ground, together with four dryads – three, after Fiannuala shot another one just as Amy counted him – and they cast their spears at her as she came on. As she hunched down and let them skitter harmlessly off her armour, Amy reflected that they would have been better served by saving their spears for the close work.

Five of her enemies were gladiators, two of them helenians with short, curved swords and small square shields, one prolixine, an argonian and one a fisherman with a trident and net. The other three Coronim were garbed as hoplites in heavy bronze, with the symbol of the rose painted on their shields.

The hoplites readied themselves in wait for her, but the gladiators leapt forward to meet her, raising their own warcries to strike the clouds. But they were gladiators, and more used to seeking glory in personal combat than to fighting together as comrades in arms, and soon they had spread themselves out as each man raced to be the first to reach her and to strike her down.

As if any of you could. No matter if you have cast your humanity aside for the sake of strength, you’re still no match for a naiad! I am of the elderborn, the hammer of God, a warrior of the first age. You’ll need more than a little extra strength to best me!

The argonian reached her first, thrusting his spear down towards her like the hero out of some old story. But he would have had to be Gabriel reborn to have had a chance against her head on, and he wasn’t strong enough, strong though he was, nor swift enough, fast though he was. Amy twisted like an eel as he drove his ash spear hard against her, and the iron tip splintered on the segments of her paudron. Amy spun, turning like a whirlpool, and the argonian was carried past her by the momentum of his own charge. He looked back, eyes wide, hand fumbling for his short-sword, but it was too late. Amy roared as she slammed Magnus Alba into his back, splintering his bronze cuirass and staining her blade with blood as her enemy fell forwards.

Amy vaguely noticed that Michael, Fiannuala and Wyrrin had gone forwards, and she wished them luck, but then the helenians were on her and she had no thoughts to spare for any battle but her own.

The two helenians came at her next. One was wild, eyes bloodshot, baring his teeth at her like a dog, slashing wildly with a sword so short it was almost a knife. The other was more cautious, holding back, his small shield held before him as he studied her with eyes the colour of a stormy cloud.

Wild or not, the first man was strong, his blows ringing on Magnus Alba as she blocked his clumsy swings, his heavy slashing strokes. The second struck while she was focussed on the first, her sword up to block a downward swing, her arms up, that wretched weak point under her armpits exposed.

And he might actually have the strength to get through my mail!

The cautious man was smiling in anticipation when a trio of magical arrows slammed into him from the side, blasting him backwards. His body bounced across the ground, his manica clattering, his sword and shield flying in different directions. The other helenian gasped in shock, and Amy pushed against him with all her might, sending him staggering backwards. She raised her sword up and with a great shout brought it down upon him. Her opponent raised his shield, but she clove straight through it and his hand as well. She finished him before he could feel too much pain.

Amy turned around, to see the runes on Jason’s staff glowing brightly. “Thanks a lot!”

Jason nodded. “You’re still a bloodthirsty brute, though.”

Amy waved dismissively as she turned her back on him and put her face once more towards the foe. Only two remained, both Rose gladiators. The dryads on the ground had all been slain, and even now Amy could hear fighting in the trees up above.

Good luck Michael, and Fiannuala. Turo guard you.

Amy faced her surviving foes, the prolixine and the fisherman. She pointed Magnus Alba at them. “Now then, will it be one at a time or both together?”

“I think I’ll go first,” the prolixine announced, drawing his swords. He was an older man, his dark hair streaked with grey, but he had left his tunic off in order to display the impressive muscles which he still possessed. He drew his swords – he fought with identical spathae – and advanced a few paces before he began to circle around her. “I must say, ever since Davidheyr I was hoping that I’d get a chance to fight you. Bringing down a naiad would set a nice cap on my career.”

“Your career as a rebel, or as a gladiator?”

“Both, I suppose, but it was as a gladiator that I was thinking,” he said. “You know, if you keep your nose clean and your head down, then when the Empire sets you free it gives you a wooden sword. Personally, I’d rather have your sword. I might even be strong enough to lift it now.”

Amy growled. “This sword is not for the likes of those who would treat it as a prize.” Magnus Alba had been forged for Niccolo himself by the finest fire drake smiths in Ferro, wrought about with spells the like of which she could not comprehend. When Niccolo had fallen on the Field of Shattered Hopes, the victorious humans had loaded body, sword and armour all upon a boat and sent them out to sea, so that God and the ocean could receive them once again. Obviously the Crimson Rose had no intention of displaying such nobility.

“Really?” the broadlander purred. “Once you’re dead you won’t have much of a say!”

He sprang at her swift as the wind, his blade streaking forwards, pressing her backwards.

“If you’re relying on your sorcerer to save you, I’d say he’s a little busy now,” the broadlander snarled, and Amy saw a flash of light from the parapet above and guessed that Jason was now fighting with another sorcerer.

“I don’t need his help to kill a rebel,” Amy snarled back at him.

“Oh, really?” the broadlander drove at her hard, the point of his sword lancing towards her neck. Amy’s gorget held the blow, but she heard it crack and prayed that he hadn’t heard it too.

It was just like when she had sparred with Michael: he was faster than she was, too fast to be sure of parrying his strokes; but she was armoured better than any warrior in Pelarius, and he couldn’t keep up that speed for very long before it started to tire him out.

Amy retreated, hunching in on herself like a mollusc presenting its spines to a hungry fish, letting his blows hammer upon the plates of her armour. The wind struck the mountain with blows like hammers, but the mountain had the endurance to still be standing when the wind was spent. All she had to do was keep him away from her vulnerable spots.

“You have impressive armour,” the broadlander said as he hammered at her back plate. Amy could hear it cracking, but she knew that it would take even a super-strong man a long time to turn a crack into a break. She turned to present her front to him, if he got behind her and decided to strike at her knee joints she would be in trouble.

“More impressive than your swords,” Amy replied as she turned to keep her opponent in view.

“Oh, certainly,” he said. “But there’s something you’ve forgotten.”

“What’s that?”

“The Crimson Rose doesn’t fight fairly, now!”

And the fisherman, whom Amy had forgotten, struck, wrapping his weighted net around her legs and hauling backwards. Amy cried out as she toppled to the ground like a fallen tree, slamming into the earth with a crash. Her back ached from the force of the impact, and that pain cost her the moment she might have had before the two rebels pinned down her arms and kicked her sword away.

They really were strong. Amy tried to push up against them and could barely make any headway. They loomed over her, a leer on the sharp features of the fisherman while the broadlander’s face was passive, with only the slightest flicker of contempt. He raised one sword, and Amy realised that he meant to stab her through the eye-slit in her helmet.

There was a high-pitched chittering sound, and the fisherman howled in pain and leapt backwards, flailing his leg as Char sank his teeth into him.

Amy didn’t waste her chance. With her free hand she grabbed the ankle of the broadlander hard enough to shatter it and threw him off of her and to the ground. She fell on him like a shark, her fists descending once, twice, three times before it was clear there was nothing living inside what remained of his head. She ripped the net in half with her hands and recovered her sword just as Char let go of the fisherman’s leg. The pain of the bite was nothing compared to what he felt as Amy cut him in half.

Amy let out a deep breath as she looked down at the pygmy salamander. “Thank you.”

Char cocked his head and squeaked contentedly.

She turned to face the three Coronim hoplites, their shields locked and their faces hidden by their crested helmets.

Amy sighed. “This isn’t nearly as much fun when you’re on your own.”

Char chirruped.

“Right, I suppose you’re here aren’t you,” Amy said. “Come on then, you’ll have to do.”

"Stratos, Lord of Lightning, and Thanates, Mistress of the Air, hear my call," Jason incanted as the runes on his staff glowed. "Thirteen arrows of light!"

The arrows fired from the tip of his staff in a blaze of white light, in two curving arcs towards the dryad sorceress who had appeared on the parapet and begun firing down at him. They looped around the warriors on the balcony, now heavily engaged with Michael and Fiannuala, to strike at the dryad from two sides.

The dryad sorceress laughed, "I conjure in the name of Thanates, Queen of the Skies, shield me with your radiance!" She spun her staff around and Jason's arrows exploded brightly but harmlessly upon her shield.

Jason was impressed. He couldn't create shields nearly half so strong.

The dryad stood at the parapet ledge, her long staff - it was a good foot taller than she was - raised over her head. Her blue eyes stared down at him imperiously, and the sunlight through the gaps in the canopy glittered off her array of amber ornament. Jason, meanwhile, stood at the edge of the trees, clad in his increasingly tattered coat, his shepherd's crook held before him. Tullia hung back, unable to intervene in this contest of sorcery.