The hooves of the white stud thundered as they ripped up the moist sod, throwing grenades of mud behind them as Elara pushed the horse to its breaking point.
The stud whined and tossed its head sideways as sweat foamed around the saddle.
A hazy black smoke filled the air as burning pitch barrels burned men, trees and open fields to blackened statues. The clang of weapons hitting armor and the shrill screams of the burning filled her ears as she dug her heels into the stubborn beast and vaulted over a spike ditch.
She was not a dragoon. She did not dig her heels into a clumsy war horse. She did not wear 32 Kilos of metal plate. She was speed. She was efficient. She was hope.
She neared the rear lines of the battle as the green of the field transformed into a blood stained and burned blackened red.
43 Valkyries had rushed into this battle. She had already watched the majority of her comrades die. It left a taste of bile as the rage bit her throat. They were being picked off one by one and not being supported by their own dragoons.
Her ward had taken an arrow in the chest and died choking on his own blood before She had dragged a blade across his neck.
The damned fool did not put the metal plates into his brigandine. The arrow went through the leather and pierced his lung near the heart. You may not wear plate armor but you put the plates of steel into the leather vest that makes a brigandine. Unless you want to fucking die. She put the fool out of his misery, a boy of 17 drunk on stories of valor. Young men always thought themselves invincible until they were staring at blood squirting out of what was left of a leg.
When she realized they were being deliberately targeted she had thrown her scarlet banner to the mud and picked up a war pick from a dead troop.
She had seen too many foolish knights play with swords only for them to be unable to pierce a breastplate and get brained by a peasant with the crude spike of iron on a wooden stick.
She had seen it today. The shining armor squirming in the sunlight as the man had a seizure with a war pick sticking out the top of his helmet.
They don’t put that shite in the ballads. Bards don’t sing about survivors getting dismembered. Or chivalrous knights getting lamp oil tossed on them and lit as they scream a shrill scream that makes the hair on your arms stand as they cook living in their armor.
She hugged the horse and made her silhouette low as the scream of arrows filled the sky. She felt a deep pressure in her thigh before the horse lurched forward.
She was weightless, It seemed as though time had slowed to a crawl as she realized she was looking at her feet but they were not on the ground.
She slammed into the earth with a force that knocked the air from her lungs. She had no time to lay there as she rolled and tried to stand. Her left leg felt wobbly as she put weight on it.
She looked down and saw a shaft sticking out of her leg as a red circle grew around it. Rule 1? don’t pull it out. You’ll squirt out faster and die.
As she reached down to snap the shaft off A javelin flew over her where her head would have been and impaled itself in the mud.
Elara whipped around and saw the black gambeson of the Indorian. He wore a round kettle helm and a breastplate, A thousand yard stare covered in soot as he pulled free the maul from his belt and sprinted at her.
Elara ducked low under the swing from the maul and drove her shoulders into his hips, scooping his legs behind the knees as they crashed to the ground in a tangle.
She used both arms to pin his weapon to the ground but the troop hit her in the side with a punch that shook her insides with searing pain.
Elara screamed and let go with her right hand slamming a hammer fist into his jaw that did little against the larger man.
The man thrust his hips and slammed her sideways into the ground as he got into a mounted position.
Elara guarded her face with her hands and sat up grabbing his weapon arm at the wrist.
The man grabbed her free hand and peeled it away from her face as he slammed his helmet into her nose with a blinding crunch that filled her vision with stars. The headbutt had filled her mouth with the taste of iron as she clinged onto consciousness.
This was not how she died.The man let go of the Maul and she saw the hook coming from her left.
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She curled her arm around the side of her head as the fist slammed into her forearm instead of her temple. She screamed and drove the heel of her hand into the man's unguarded manhood.
The man lurched forward holding his testicles and Elara grabbed his head and sunk her teeth into the soft flesh of his neck. She bit down on the artery and tore her head back as blood squirted in her face.
The Man wrapped his hands around the opened artery and fell off of her sideways as Elara in a screaming fury picked up the maul and let it down.
The man's face depressed inwards as the maul shattered his unarmored face and left him still as blood squirted in thin red streams from the hole in his neck.
The maul came down again.
and again.
and again.
When she stopped his head was a pile of broken skull and the liquid pink and white of his brain matter.
She dropped the maul and staggered away from the battle as the adrenaline wore off. Everything hurt and she could not put weight on her leg. She would die if they captured her.
They would cut her arms off first and then her legs, They would then hang her corpse dismembered by the neck as a sick warning to any friendlies in the area. Elara gritted her teeth and dragged her shot leg and limped back the way she had come towards the surgery tent.
As she limped the thunder of hooves filled the air so strong she could feel the pounding in the ground. She turned and saw a wave of Dragoons pushing through and past what remained of the friendly infantry and towards her.
Her stomach filled with a cold shock as she realized what the platoon of Indorians were doing.
It was not enough that they had won. They were going towards their camp. Their surgery tent. Their supplies. Their servant tents. Their wounded, their sick and their soon to be dead. The indorians would execute them all for opposing them. Even in a small way.
Elara was dead on her feet. This battle had raged for a day and a half. She had not slept during that time. She lost count of the patients, their surgery tent was overrun with the screams of wounded and the coppery scent of blood. Their reserves were depleted as the bastards just charged. Again. And again. And again.
They had lost their first company to oil and pitch barrels as the damned fool of a commander charged straight forward into the trap. The 43 Valkyries had done their best but when a man is engulfed in flames as his tendons tighten from the heat, his eyes dripping down his cheeks…You hit him in the head with a rock and move on.
The Commander cooked alive in his armor the same as his men. Young dumb and pompous fool.
Elara watched the dragoons pound forward as she sat against a tree and drew the war pick. Not for them but for her. She would slam it into her eye, that would spare her being alive for the dismemberment.
As she prepared to take her own life suddenly the earth split with a rumbling that shook her in place as the earth jutted apart, throwing the men from their saddles. The earth parted into a jagged open mouth and than it rested
Had the gods intervened? As she stared at the sight in awe a mailed hand grabbed her by the collar and ripped her to a standing position.
She saw the Triton’s crest stamped into the scuffed and dented plate suit that he wore, she looked up at him in a daze just wanting so terribly badly to sleep. That Holy shield stamped into his breastplate.
The triton grabbed her by the jaw and forced her mouth open before uncorking a clay bottle and dumping the sour liquid down her throat. She swallowed reflexively as the liquid hit the back of her throat.
Her eyes shot open as endless energy filled her, her eyes felt like balls of fire as heat rested in the center of her sternum. She no longer felt the pain as she shoved away from the triton.
“What in the fuck was that shite”, She said feeling greater than a giant.
“Stewed dragons adrenal gland”, The triton said roughly as he shoved past her and dumped a potion into his own mouth and threw the clay bottle to the ground. He thrusted a clawed hand towards the dragoons as a brilliant green and blue flame shot out of his hand and engulfed the dismounted riders.
He held the pose as the fire caught them all in a brutal wave of screaming death as the fire cut through the air.
He held his hand there for several moments, far too long. He was over exerting. But he was also winning. Leaving no survivors as the wave of hellfire swept over the bastards.
The triton dropped his hand as the Indorians screamed horribly from the burning of the flames. They cooked as the triton clutched his hand to his chest as sweat beaded his unvisored face.
Elara reached for her surgery satchel and found it missing. She cursed silently as she realized this bloody fool probably just lost his fucking had over-exerting his magic.
“Take the gauntlet off triton, let me see”, She said urgently as she got to work.
The triton pulled off the gauntlet to reveal a shriveled black hand.
“By chalana that bloody hurts”, The triton said through gritted teeth as he clutched the dead hand to his chest.
Elara sighed said “we have to get to the surgery tent, That corruption will crawl up the limb until it stops your heart”
“Just cut it off here”, The triton said through gritted teeth.
Elara shook her head and said “So you can get blood poisoning and die later?”
“Cut the fucking thing off before I lose more of the arm”, The triton hissed as sweat beaded his brow.
Elara sighed and got to work on the buckles of his armor. She fought with the dented rivets and stiff straps before finally freeing the triton from his banged and bruised armor. He leaned forward at the waist shaking off the mail shirt and she finally saw how bad the corruption was.
His arm was black to the elbow leaving the flesh tight around the bones giving his lower arm the look of a black skeleton as the magic ate away the muscle and veins.
The triton hissed as Elara took her belt off and tightened it around his bicep. She tightened it until she couldn't fit her finger under the belt.
“Brace yourself triton this will hurt”
“Just do it”
Elar nodded and freed her dirk from its sheath and began to cut into the bicep. She kept her dirk to a razors edge. As the first cut separated the flesh to the bone the triton surprisingly did not scream.
He let out a shaky gasp as the knife separated his flesh and blood made rivers down the black of his corrupted arm. She had cut the flesh around the bone and without warning the man she snapped the bone over her knee with a sharp CRACK!
She held the black arm in his hand and threw it to the ground for the carrion birds and the triton clutched his new stump with a tense face contorted by pain.
Elara patted the now armless man on the back and sheathed the dirk as she and the triton leaned on one another without a word and limped back towards the rear encampment.
The battle was over. She had seen tritons pull off bold tactics, but burning a dragoon platoon alive by yourself and only losing an arm? She had seen mages die overexerting themselves by a far lesser degree. She had heard tritons were more resilient than the normal man. The rumors of the 9 Potions that either killed them or mutated them.
She was like to believe that now as she and the armless triton limped back from the aftermath of the bloody battle hard won.
or had both sides lost?
“How in blazes did you split the earth?” Elara asked the triton.
“That…wasn’t…me”, The triton hissed gasping from the pain. A lesser man would have passed out from shock. A luckier man.
The information shocked Elara however. If not a triton then who was powerful enough to mold the very earth? Had it been the Gods?
The triton continued with shaky words “Never…Seen that …Before…Impossible”
“well whatever it was thank Asa it was on our side”
“Don’t…Thank …Asa…For the tricks …Of Chalana”, The Triton gasped
The broken duo limped in silence for hours as the potion wore off of Elara. Her left pant leg was scarlet with her own blood as the energy that filled her ebbed.They approached the red stained white surgery tent and her breath caught in her throat.
The dead were piled in a mountain beside overflowing carts of corpses as a single healer squatted looking past them with a thousand yard stare. He was smeared with blood as a shaky hand lifted a cup to his lips. The dark purple of the wine dribbled out of his mouth and carved a river down the front of his leather apron.
Groaning wounded in neat rows filled the opposite space of the surgery tent as healers worked on them changing dressings or squeezing water down their throats from dipped rags.
The Healer with the thousand yard stare stood up and dropped the cup before walking over to them calmly and without a word lifting the amputated triton by the other shoulder and helped them into the surgery tent.
