Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (64 page)

"Arus, Lord of Fire, let your anger blaze through me," the dryad cried. "One hundred and eight blooming flowers of fire!"

A mass of fireballs, each barely the size of a child's fist yet strong enough to burn right through flesh, flew out of the speartip in a great torrent.

Jason dropped to his knees, planting his staff in the ground, "Thanates, harden the air and shield me with your touch!"

The shield came up just in time, and the fire-flowers struck it in a series of crashing hammerblows. Through his connection to the shield Jason could feel each blow as a pulse through his body, could feel the cracks appearing in it.

The dryad laughed, "Is that the best you can do, little squirrel?"

If the insult was intended to provoke him to rash anger, it did not work. Jason was not Michael or Amy, to stand upon his pride and take offence at every slight. He had spent his life being slighted by those for whose opinion he cared not a jot, and he had great experience in letting these things slide off him.

Besides, there were bigger problems to worry about than his ego.

They had done well so far, with Amy having just about managed to dispatch the Crimson Rose warriors, while Michael's group had gotten up into the trees. But the dryad warriors up there were hurling themselves against the attackers with such ferocity that Jason was worried that the assault would stall, and Amy was starting to look tired. Even the remaining Rose warriors might overcome her.

Jason glanced behind him, to where Tullia waited. She was their only unengaged and fresh warrior, their only reserve, in martial parlance. And he knew better than anyone how good she was, how swift, how skilled. If he sent her to aid Amy, or to get the assault moving up above, she could well turn the tide.

Of course, he would be left defenceless, but she could not exactly protect him now either.

Jason frowned. "Tullia," he said. "I want you to-"

Whatever he might have said was lost as a dozen dryads burst out of the trees, spears out, whooping and yelling as they came for him.

And then Tullia was between he and they, her fists blazing with lightning.

"Face to the front, Your Highness," Tullia snapped. "I will defend you here, but you must defend yourself from the magic before us, for I fear I cannot aid you there."

Another man might have hesitated to do as she bid, another man might have felt an itch in his back as he turned around with so many foes behind him. But Jason did as he was bid to do without a trace of fear, for Tullia Athenaeum guarded him, and while she lived he had no fear at all for his safety.

He just wished he had the same confidence in the outcome of his own duel.

Lightning sparked at Tullia's fingertips as she danced across the grass, barely leaving an impression on the blades. Magic shot from her palms to strike the dryads across their bodies, rippling up and down their green or yellow skin, lashing at them as they howled in agony before dropping to the ground.

She guessed that they were some scouting party, returning to their camp and stumbling upon the battle, and at once she cursed their misfortune and was glad of it. It put her in difficulties, but it would make the task of Michael and his party easier. And she would win. She had no doubt of it, as she produced a knife from up her sleeve and opened a dryad's throat with it. She tossed another dagger into the eye of a warrior who was trying to get around her and strike at His Highness.

"Your fight is with me," Tullia growled, blasting a dryad backwards with lightning from her left hand. "Or are you so afraid of a human maid that you will look around for easier pickings?" If she had been back in Eternal Pantheia, her superiors would have had fits to hear her speaking with such pride, such bravado. But it seemed that travel had loosened her inhibitions, although she could not blame her attitude on the bad influence of Michael or Amy. She had always been proud, she had just hidden it well.

A tall dryad with reddening skin leapt at her, but Tullia pirouetted around him and drove her right palm into the small of his back, lightning erupting up and down his body until he died. She drove a third knife into the belly of another warrior. No, she felt no misgivings. She could win this battle. If only she could be as confident in the duel she could not influence.

As she danced a bloody swathe through her enemies Tullia prayed to Silwa, goddess of victory, and Beltor, god of war, that His Highness would be kept safe. They were a warrior's gods, not the gods of a mage, but then Tullia had always considered herself a warrior first and foremost. A warrior with magic, to be sure, but a warrior nonetheless.

Beltor and Silwa grant them victory this day.

Vines leapt up from the ground to grab at her, but Tullia leapt away from them swift as a deer, lightning blasting out her hands towards the dryad who stood, without weapons, hands raised towards her. If he was not conjuring wood magic then she was no mage at all.

More vines rose up from out of the soil to block her lightning, and before Tullia could fire again she was distracted by an attack from behind her. By the time she had slain that foe, the wood mage was conjuring more vines from under the grass and down out of the trees to ensnare her.

Tullia scowled, drawing her two remaining knives and slashing at the vines as they snaked towards her. All the other dryads were dead, slain by her hand, but this mage who yet lived on showed no unease at the death of his comrades as he advanced upon her, conjuring up ever more vines to grab at her. There was a manic grin on his face as he kept on coming, conjuring more and more.

Tullia slashed at them again and again and again, slicing through vines until her breath began to run ragged, retreating in a circle, trying to avoid being driven too far from His Highness. But she was being driven, like cattle, and this wood mage was the herdsman.

And then he caught her, his vines eluding Tullia's slowing responses to grab her by the ankles and the wrists, twisting her arms till the knives dropped from her hands, pinning her in place, grabbing her around the waist, curling tightly around her neck until they began to choke her. So tight...she couldn't breathe...and the pain.

Tullia bared her teeth in futile defiance as the wood mage advanced upon her. "A human maid indeed. What can you do without those eagle-swift hands of yours?"

This.
Tullia thought, and she let her whole body explode with magic, lightning dancing across her whole body as it erupted out of her in all directions, flaying the face and body of the dryad mage. The dryad screamed, his vines seemed to scream as the lightning tore them apart, but Tullia screamed too as the magic she had called upon attacked her nearly as much as her foe. She was ordinarily immune to lightning, and to lightning magic. But magic was meant to be released in careful doses, while now she was discharging almost everything she had at once, through orifices that were never meant to channel magic, and it was ripping through her.

Not to mention that she would die of exhaustion if she used too much power.

But she could not give up. Not while there was a chance that her enemy might live. She had sworn to defend His Highness. She had promised the Emperor that she would keep his son alive.

"He is my boy, the son that I could never know and never will. I was never a father to him, but I can at least do this. Let no harm befall him."

"Have no fear, Your Majesty. Even if it costs me my life I will see His Highness safe and grown to be a son and prince you could be proud of. I am Tullia of the Black and I will not fail."

So Tullia bit her tongue against the pain as she felt like she was being crucified, as she felt her strength ebb like the tide, as the dryad wood mage was reduced to charred flesh. Only when his body fell lifeless to the ground did Tullia reduce her magic, and conserve the tithe of her strength that bound her to the world of men.

She landed on the ground with a thud, feeling the grass pricking against her face, brushing at her palms. She half expected to hear His Highness cry out, but of course she had told him to ignore her, to focus on himself, and he would do as he was told.

He was very good at following orders, for a prince.

Silwa and Beltor grant him victory and keep him safe from all things from which I cannot protect him.

More dryads emerged from the trees, a second scouting party returning. With whoops and cries they ran towards His Highness, paying her no attention whatsoever, and it was that insult almost as much as the threat to His Highness that got Tullia on her feet, reaching for her knives with an unerring grip, hurling herself upon the enemy - there were only seven of them this time, only a little more than half the number she had just overcome - and drove both knives into the belly of the leading dryad. She ripped them across his guts and they covered her as they fell upon the ground, staining her with blood like a butcher or a predatory animal. The spray of opening a second dryad's throat covered her face to complete the image.

"You will not touch His Highness while I live," Tullia snarled.

These dryads had bows with them, and they drew on her even as the spearmen - spear-dryads, she should say - prepared to strike.

Tullia gasped, failing to hide her heavy breathing or the weariness she felt. Pride or not, this second battle would be a challenge, to put it mildly.

"Niccolo! Niccolo and the Whalewatch! For God and the Covenant!" Amy yelled as she threw herself into the fray, whirling Magnus Alba around with reckless abandon, slicing dryads apart left and right. Char sat on her shoulder, coughing up fireballs at the astonished dryads, doing his part to help Amy lay them low. Tullia prepared to launch magic at the survivors, but found there was nothing for her to do as Amy made short work of the flat-footed dryads.

"Like I said, not warlike in the least bit," Amy said, planting her sword point first in the ground. "That wasn't half so hard as the rebels were."

Tullia panted, looking behind her to see the three hoplites lying dead in a heap, their armour rent by cuts in many places. "I thought you were exhausted."

"There's nothing like winning to perk you up a bit," Amy said, taking off her helmet to flash a savage grin in Tullia's direction. "Besides, real battle is all about stamina, I just needed a moment to get my wind back."

Tullia drew herself up. She looked at His Highness, still locked in combat, and then at the tree where Michael's group fought on. There was no way Amy could climb it, encumbered as she was by all that armour.

"Guard His Highness for me," Tullia said. "Keep him safe, I'm going to help Michael."

Amy's eyebrows rose. "I thought you were-"

"Exhausted?" Tullia flashed her a smile. "I will not be outdone by a naiad knight. I have the pride of the mage corps resting on me."

Amy chuckled as she held out her hand. "Help my boy out. But keep yourself safe, too."

"I have no shield to come back either with or upon," Tullia said, as she took Amy's hand. "So I will have to hope a dryad has one for me to come back with.

They clasped hands tightly, Amy's armoured gauntlet squeezing Tullia's palm, before Tullia ran to join the battle up above.

Duty sliced down to open a wound across the chest of a dryad, who cried out as he toppled off the ledge and to the ground below. Michael instantly fell back into a guard, waiting to see who would be bold enough to challenge him next.

He was trying to fight his way to the sorcerer currently giving His Highness such trouble, but his way was barred by a host of dryad warriors. Wyrrin and Fiannuala were trying to reach the central hold, but were also being held back by a tide of enemies. Had the dryads been skilled warriors they might have overwhelmed the three but, as Amy had predicted, they lacked experience, and a trail of fallen dryads testified to that. Now they seemed afraid to challenge him, even as they still barred his path to the dryad sorcerer.

"Come now," Michael declared. "Who will be next? One at a time or all together I fear you not."

"Meinir!" Fiannuala howled as she slew dryads with her swift spear. "Meinir! Come out and die!"

"What is the meaning of this disturbance?" a woman's voice, rich and deep, demanded as a voluptuous dryad with skin slowly turning to yellow emerged from the  hall suspended in the centre of the clearing. She was accompanied by a guard of dryads in armour of lacquered green, who stood protectively around her. She said, "Fiannuala, was that you shouting? Have you some business with me or did you come here simply to stain my home with blood?"

"Business? You ask what business I have with you?" Fiannuala demanded, her voice hoarse. The princess of Eena was quivering all over, her expression a mixture of trepidation, excitement and the sheer fury that Michael recognised all too well from his encounter with Judas in the arena.

"For what you did seven years ago," Fiannuala said. "For what you're doing now. For the sake of my mother and my sisters; I swear to Dala, I'll kill you!"

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of laughter from Meinir.

The woman who had slain the Queen of Eena and riven the wood with death and battle was tall, with a full waist and a wild head of shoulder length black hair. Her voluptuous breasts were nearly spilling out of a tight dress stitched together out of leaves and animal skins. Her full lips were thickly reddened, and her cheeks paled. Her eyelashes were long, and her eyes a startling blue. Her laugh was sultry.