Episode 10: The Blizzard Episode 12: Sealing, Part 2
Oh boy oh boy oh boy I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. Have some soundtracks!
- Dark Pit for the mock battle between Ceniro and Pent
- Rittaikidou for the long-distance confrontation and charge (and bleeds into the next chapter’s material a bit as well)
- Erosion for the initial panic and thudding pulse
- Mechanical Rhythm and
- Levi vs. Female Titan for the rest of the battle
And there’ll be more next chapter too! Eeeeee!
Episode 11: Sealing, Part 1
Spring had come to Elibe again; Klein was one year old. Ceniro and his company were in Bern, hunting high and low for evidence of Eckesachs, the only Legendary Weapon they had not yet sealed away.
They hadn’t had much luck on any fronts; it was as if Eckesachs had never existed. Even the dark mages of Bern weren’t any help. And Ceniro had this nagging worry… Milton had gone back to Bern after his defeat a year ago. He’d had a year to search for the weapon, even if he’d been sending his associates across Elibe for other weapons. Unfortunately, that worry didn’t do anything useful, and it certainly didn’t help find clues, so he tried not to dwell on it. They were doing what they could.
They were in the south end of Bern, taking odd jobs to keep themselves going while Pent, Erk, and Rigel did all the research. Pent and Louise had been recognized only once so far, by random guardsmen, but Ceniro counted them fortunate to have gotten away that time and avoided soldiers as much as they could.
But today they were stopping for lunch by an empty meadow by the small road they were traveling on, heading back north towards more settled lands.
“We should do a proper mock battle, not just those training exercises and sparring matches,” George said as he finished his bread. “Pit Lord Pent against Ceniro.”
“You want us all to get killed?” Yens joked. “No one will survive that!”
“I’ll take that challenge,” Pent said. “I’m curious to see how I match up against the master, after all this time with you.”
Ceniro looked at him, looked at the group. “Sure, why not? It sounds like fun, more interesting than the drills I try to make up.”
“All right, I choose Lyn for my team!” Pent said immediately.
Ceniro laughed. “Of course you do. Then I choose Erk.”
“Louise.”
“Wil.”
“Frank.”
“Andy.”
In the end, it was Pent, Lyn, Louise, Frank, Fiora, Kent, George, and Yens, against Ceniro, Erk, Wil, Andy, Florina, Caddie, Rigel, and Renee.
“Well this is going to be tricky,” Ceniro said cheerfully, when they had retreated to the side of the meadow designated as ‘theirs’. “He already knows what I do, so the obvious plan of attack is to take me out first – especially since I’m not a good fighter. There are many ways he could do this, but one of the most obvious is to send Lyn after me – I’ll never defeat her, and she’s faster than me. She’s also better than most of you, so there’s not much we can do to stop her. All we can do is slow her down. If this were real life, I’d be considering retreat, actually.”
“Wait, you can do that?” asked Wil, grinning.
“There are some things which simply cannot be overcome,” Ceniro answered solemnly. “Lyn is one of those things.”
The others laughed, and he began to position them in a formation that would probably be able to stand up to the power of Pent’s side. Pent had chosen most of the older, stronger fighters, besides Lyn, but Ceniro liked working with the younger people too, watching raw talent and enthusiasm make up for lack of years of experience.
“And he knows that, he knows I’m going to try and take him and Lyn out first, and so he can afford to put a little extra defense around himself… Lyn doesn’t need it, and he can send her anywhere. She’s like the Divine piece in chess…”
He asked Florina, Erk, and Wil to slow down Lyn if at all possible, and resigned himself to doing a lot of running. He’d have to be bait. Rigel would be assigned to take out Pent, and Caddie and Renee would guard her against the inevitable charge from Frank and Kent. And of course Louise was going to be a huge threat as well. But if they could stop Pent and Lyn, then the battle was as good as his.
If. Ha.
He grinned as he looked at the other side of the field, his heart pumping in anticipation. He wasn’t using the farseer today; Pent didn’t have one, so it would have been an unfair advantage for either side. “Go!”
Immediately, Lyn came for him, and he ran away, pretending to scream in panic. He ran past Renee, who was giggling so hard she could hardly hold her spear straight, and towards where Florina was going to make a dive. He heard a whoosh behind him, and knew it was Erk setting off a spell. Then Erk yelped, but when he looked around, he was running, so he wasn’t tagged out yet. “Erk! Get Kent! Wil! Look out for Fiora!”
“Damn!” Fiora cried as Wil tagged her pegasus with a padded arrow. “I didn’t properly get a shot at anyone!”
“Next time,” Pent called, casting, grinning, and Wil disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Wil reappeared, coughing and spluttering. “Gee, thanks, Lord Pent!”
“Hey, it wasn’t Thunder,” Pent said cheerfully.
At that moment they heard a soft mumbling and cooing, and then an odd gnawing sound…
“W-what’s that?” Rigel asked, looking around frantically.
“Oh!” Louise cried. “It’s Klein. I’m sorry, he’s gotten into your things. Just one moment…”
“Pause!” Ceniro called, and everyone sat down to catch their breath. There was a lot of giggling going on, especially when Louise pried the farseer out of Klein’s hands and they could all hear it – and Klein’s wail as he tried to get it back.
“No, Klein!” Louise said firmly. “Not a toy! Come here, have one of your own toys.”
“I’ll watch him,” Fiora said, taking him from Louise. “Come on, Lord Klein, we’re going to watch your parents do amazing things!” She carried him to the edge of the field, where they’d get a better view. Louise hurried back to her place.
“Ready?” Ceniro called. “Resume!” Where was he? Oh yes, running away from Lyn some more. And now he was down Wil. Drat.
After about half an hour, he was getting a little bored. Combat swirled fast and graceful around him, thrilling to watch if he’d had time, but Pent’s orders were rather predictable, and now Renee, Kent, and Caddie were down, sitting on the edge of the field with Wil, Fiora, and Klein. And Lyn was still chasing him across the entire field.
So he began to be a brat. “No, Frank, don’t attack Florina, attack Andy. Andy, get the hell out of there. Louise, shoot Florina. Florina, get Pent. Pent, do whatever you want. Lyn, you better keep chasing me if you want me to shut up!”
“Oh, you just wait!” Lyn and Pent called at the same time, and he giggled as he ran.
“You just want a beautiful girl to run after you!” Wil yelled.
“Of course he does,” Renee said. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Yens, go tag out Rigel so she can sit with her girlfriend,” Ceniro called. “Rigel, you’re on my team, so if you let Yens tag you out just so you can sit with Renee, you’re packing up all the lunch things!”
“Worry about your own fate!” Rigel snarked back, and he looked around to see that Lyn was two steps closer than she’d been for the last five minutes. Panic spurred him to a sudden spurt of speed, taking him farther out into the field and away from everyone else. He heard the whisper of a sword and figured it was time to turn and defend himself before she slashed him in the back.
But he couldn’t get his sword out in time- “Ahhh- ahhhhhh! Lyn! No, no, no, Lyn, no!” But it was too late, he couldn’t get away, she dove on him and tackled him to the ground.
“Ha!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Got you! I win!”
“You mean Pent wins,” he said, grinning back at her as she sat on him, both of them panting for air after their long run.
“Nope. I win!”
“Oh?” He reached up and dragged her down for a breathless kiss; she struggled for the briefest of moments before taking back the initiative and snogging him so hard he thought he saw stars. At least he had the presence of mind to wrap his arms around her and hold her close to him, weaving his fingers into her long, silky hair.
“Yeah,” she said more softly as they broke apart, both gasping for air and not entirely because of their exercise now. “I win.”
“We both win,” he answered, just as softly, and she kissed him again. He broke away, rolling them over so he was on top, dove for the spot under her jaw that she liked, and her arms tightened around him as she tilted her head back.
“Bow chicka ow ow!” Wil yelled from camp, though Ceniro was pretty sure he couldn’t see them in the tall grass.
“Shut up, Wil!” they both yelled back, and heard giggling from the distance.
Early the next morning when they were packing camp, Ceniro first noticed the farseer was missing. It wasn’t in the pouch it was usually in, and they hadn’t moved from that spot yet. “Louise? What did you do with the farseer after you took it away from Klein?”
“I put it in its little bag and put it under a blanket so he wouldn’t find it again,” Louise answered, violet eyes wide with concern. “Why, is it not there?”
“It’s not there. Has anyone seen it?”
Everyone searched, searched through their things and searched the ground all around, even as far as they’d been fighting, although he knew it couldn’t have gone that far.
“That’s the strangest thing,” Pent said. “It must be around here somewhere.”
“It’s not like I really need it or else we can’t win,” Ceniro said, still turning around in circles, trying to think of other places to look. “But if it’s here, I really don’t want to just leave it here…”
Pent looked at him sharply. “You think it might not be here? That maybe someone stole it?”
“It’s not impossible. But that would mean there was someone who knew what it was and who was clever enough to sneak into our camp without anyone noticing, maybe during the fight yesterday, and remove it again without making any noise.”
“They could turn off the sound,” Pent said. “But you’re right, that does sound a bit unlikely.”
“You can’t sense it or anything?”
“The short answer is no,” Pent said, and Ceniro grimaced in disappointment. “It’s an oversight, I know. I should have thought of that when I made it.”
They’d been looking for an hour, and there wasn’t a trace of it. They had to move on, so reluctantly, he gave the order to continue packing up and leave. But he was unsettled.
They hadn’t gone far along the road when they heard an urgent clatter ahead of them and saw a cluster of knights, maybe ten of them, and in front, two vaguely familiar figures, one with short golden curls, the other with a shock of brown hair.
“Oh!” Lyn said. “Isn’t that…”
“Prince Zephiel?” Pent finished. “And General Murdock? I wonder what brings them out here?”
The prince caught sight of them and abruptly raised a hand, signalling his knights to stop, and brought his horse to a stop with grace, even though he was looking wide-eyed and anxious. “What is your name, mercenaries?”
Pent and Ceniro looked at each other. “We’re Ceniro’s Elite Company,” Ceniro said. “I’m Ceniro. What can I do for Your Highness?” Murdock’s eyes narrowed, but then the general nodded. He remembered him?
Zephiel dismounted and stumbled towards Ceniro. “Please, Master Ceniro, I need your help! My – my family has been captured, maybe killed, but maybe it’s not too late…!”
Ceniro jerked back in surprise. “How-”
“I’m not sure, it happened so fast. Mother was visiting Father in the castle of Armica, and I had come in secret… I wanted to see my sister… But a great army surrounded the castle, and I saw the second son of the Duke of Tulgren go in with great purpose. Murdock rescued me with these knights-”
“Wait,” Ceniro said. “Son of the Duke of Tulgren – Milton of Tulgren?”
“Yes, indeed. Master Ceniro, will you not come and see if my family can be saved? You are their only hope. I have heard how you overcome anything set before you.” He turned to Pent. “Lord Pent, yes? I know you and Lady Louise were wrongly exiled. I know you saved me, not tried to kill me. I could not convince my father before, but if we save him, surely he will agree to clear your name!”
“Your Highness,” Murdock murmured. “Surely you are not thinking of going back yourself…”
“Of course I am, Murdock! I-I must see if Guinevere is all right!”
“If your father has been murdered, you are the only hope for Bern!” Murdock insisted.
Ceniro looked at them, interrupted the argument. They could settle that later. “I’ll come, but I need more information. What happened to the Bern Army? How many soldiers does Milton have? Where has he placed them? What’s the terrain like around the castle? I’ve lost my tactical device so I’m going to be at a slight disadvantage.”
Murdock looked less happy about this than ever, but Zephiel held out a hand and Murdock gave him a map of the area. Ceniro got George to hold it while they peered at it. The castle of Arnica was at the top of a small mountain or large hill; to the north were more hills, growing to proper mountains to the north-east. A river wound in from the north-west to the south-east, and while the entire map was dotted with both forests and fields, most of the forests seemed to be on the east and the fields on the west. “The Bern Army was not present,” Murdock said. “They are doing manoeuvres in Valhalen under the command of General Calum. Lord Milton has maybe five hundred men, including a hundred wyvern riders.”
Ceniro grimaced and raised his eyebrows. “Wonder where he got them from.”
“I believe he’s allied himself with several other lords,” Murdock said. “Lord Harrigan, Lord Westvale, Lord Gauss, I saw all their liveries as we fled.”
“Lord Gauss?” Andy piped up, and Ceniro was startled to see he looked angry. “He’s the one who abandoned us, the one we couldn’t stand to serve. If we can bring him to justice…”
“Not the goal,” Ceniro said tersely, and Andy settled back, still frowning. “The best way, it would seem, is to avoid all of that by going through the forest. It’ll slow us down a little, but the wyverns will find it much harder to spot us, then. But even slowed, speed is going to be our ally. We can’t get dragged into any fighting or else it will make it much harder to capture Milton. Besides, someone might get hurt and I’ll need everyone to help hold the castle.”
“Capture Lord Milton?” Murdock frowned. “How will that help? He has an army.”
“He has an army that will be looking for us outside the castle,” Ceniro said. “Florina and Fiora will be decoys; they’ll lead the army to search for us around the hills to the north-west.” He looked at Murdock. “But you’re right. Even if we take out Milton, prevent him from commanding his army, his army is well capable of fighting on its own. Unless we can really break it into piecemeal bits, we won’t be able to hold the castle for long, even if we take it with the gate intact. How far away is the Bern Army?”
“Not more than a couple hours,” Murdock said. “I can send one of my knights to get them.”
“Send two,” Ceniro said. “We just need to get to Milton and De- King Desmond before anything happens and wait for those reinforcements.” While shooting down every wyvern rider they possibly could.
“Very well,” Murdock said, and gestured to two of his knights, who immediately continued south on the road with all speed.
Ceniro turned to Zephiel, feeling a little funny that the prince, who had been about the same height as him the last time they met, now towered over him. “Do you want to fight?”
“Yes!” Zephiel exclaimed. “I have been trained well! Please don’t leave me behind!”
“Then you can fight,” Ceniro said. “But you must trust me completely, and obey every one of my orders without question.”
The prince hesitated for the barest second. “My fate is in your hands.”
Ceniro smiled reassuringly at him. “Then everything will be fine.” He looked at Murdock. “You’ll be at his side always, of course. I suspect you fight better together.”
“Thank you,” Murdock said shortly.
Belatedly, he turned to the rest of the team. “I didn’t even ask you all… Do you want to fight? This is going to be the most difficult battle I’ve ever conducted, and you have no real reason to be in it. You least of all, Pent, Louise. If you’d like to sit this one out, that’s fine.” Although he really needed every single one of them…
Lyn snorted. “How are you expecting to win without your team? We’re with you.”
“You haven’t led us wrong yet,” Pent said. “This sounds difficult, not to mention tiring, but we’ll give it our all.”
“We trust you,” Louise said. “I’m not leaving Lord Pent’s side.”
“Lord Gauss aside, I’ll follow wherever you lead,” Andy said. “And didn’t you already say you needed everyone?”
“I’m definitely coming!” Renee said. “I need to see this!”
“Then I’m coming,” Rigel said. “I hope Vellith isn’t there today…”
The rest chorused their agreement with determination, and he stared at them gratefully. “I… thank you. I do need you. I won’t let you down.”
“That’s all we could ever ask for,” said Kent.
With Murdock in the lead, they hurried on their way. Ceniro told Fiora and Florina to fly low, and that he would tell them when to split off to do their decoy work. It was only a few minutes before they saw a swell of hills to the right of the road and Murdock pointed towards them. “Past those hills is a road that leads across the fields to the castle. We used it while escaping, chased all the way, but your plan calls for us to leave the road and turn north now, does it not?”
“That sounds right. But first I want to get a quick look at the terrain from that hill,” Ceniro said. “Lyn, with me. Everyone else, stay put.”
He climbed to the top of the hill, which gave him a wonderful view of the river valley before him, and the line of hills on the other side with the castle in the centre. It was maybe an hour’s walk away; a bit less by horse, or even if they ran, but a bit more if they had to fight, which they probably would. And maybe ten minutes flying, which was never fair, but that was how it was. He couldn’t see into the forest; hopefully any wyvern riders that showed up wouldn’t be able to either.
Speaking of which… He frowned. Where were all the wyvern riders?
“Ceniro of Santaruz,” said a deep voice in his ear, and he stiffened. Down below, he heard all movement from his friends cease as well. They’d all heard it.
“Milton,” he said in a low voice, and Milton chuckled mirthlessly.
“I thought you would come. I let Zephiel escape, to see if he would find you. You always bested me before, in training, and I wonder what would have happened if our positions had been reversed at Tanquet Pass. So now I challenge you – come, with your little band of followers, come to my wyverns, to my paladins, to my fortifications, while I hold your farseer and Eckesachs. If you do not, I will kill King Desmond and his whole family before hunting you down like the cowardly rat you are and wiping out every one of you.”
As Milton spoke, wyverns rose from the hills around the castle, a hundred of them like Murdock had said, swooping towards them on ominous green wings. One of them was close enough to spiral around the hill on which he stood, until an arrow from Lyn beside him made it shy away and back to its fellows in the distance. Columns of knights, mounted and on foot, emerged from behind the hills, sweeping over the fields to the east. What had seemed like a quiet countryside only a few minutes before was now thick with enemies.
Ceniro didn’t even ask how Milton knew he was in the area. Of course he knew; he had somehow obtained the farseer, which meant he had known since yesterday exactly where they were. Why he hadn’t attacked then, with this overwhelming force, however… Maybe he had been discomfited by the lack of a fortification to base his forces from. Maybe he wanted to kill two birds with one battle. Maybe, maybe, maybe. He glared at the far-off castle, as if his sight alone could pierce distance, stone, and Milton’s mind, to see what he was thinking. “What will you gain by this?”
“Did you know where Eckesachs was this entire time? I suppose you did not, or else you would have been here by now on your little quest to conceal the strongest sources of power in Elibe. So that you can clearly grasp how futile your situation is, I will tell you: Eckesachs was in the hands of the King of Bern… and he cannot wield it.”
“And you can,” Ceniro said.
“I can. Hartmut has chosen me as a worthy wielder of his sword. And now Bern will no longer have a jealous, incompetent coward for a ruler, but a strong, thoughtful one, the true heir of one of the Legendary Weapons! All that remains is for me to destroy you, the one person who I could never best.”
“Not in a fair fight, at least,” Ceniro said, looking at all the wyverns. He’d have to finish up with the verbal sparring and get his forces moving very soon. He sighed a deep breath. “Well. Unlike you, I am not a citizen of Bern. Her leadership currently affects me very little. I have no reason to throw myself and all my friends into a situation where every condition is against me. Even if I do make it to you, even if I managed to kill you, you know as well as I do that your army can still overwhelm my people and throw Bern into absolute chaos. And I certainly am not responsible for you or your decisions.”
“Ceniro?” Lyn asked quietly, looking at him.
He drew his sword and pointed it at the distant castle, his face hard and determined. “But it is my responsibility to stop you, because no one else can. And someone asked me to, and I’ll honour my promise. That you should threaten Princess Guinevere is unthinkable. So I’ll attempt even the impossible, because I have to.”
“We’ll see how much of that confidence is left when you’ve made it here,” Milton said grimly. “Renee, of all the people with him, you are the one I would spare the most. You, at least, should retreat.”
“No!” Renee cried. “There’s far too much at stake here! You don’t understand about the Weapons, you don’t understand about Ceniro, and I’m not leaving my girlfriend!”
“So be it. I’ll try to make your death quick and painless.” And there was silence.
Ceniro lingered a second more, tried to figure out what was ahead of them, how Milton was going to be using the terrain to his advantage. Think. It had looked like most of his forces had been in the fields; they would be using the open terrain to move south level with them, and then force their way east into the forest to cut them off. His people would have to move north and stay east to try to avoid them.
“All right,” he said, hurrying down the back of the hill to his people. “We have no time to be clever, and Milton can hear every word we say. He can also see every step we take. Lyn, you might be able to evade his sight if you’re particularly stealthy.”
“I will stalk him like a wolf,” Lyn growled.
“Everyone else…” He gestured, telling them who they should group with. “And don’t stop. For anything. Unless I tell you otherwise. He knows me and the gist of my style, so I’m going to have to bluff and double-bluff and triple-bluff him while explaining nothing to you, and you, you all have to be pure chaos here. Milton doesn’t like chaos.”
“How exactly are we getting past them?” Kent asked. “Anything like when you assaulted Castle Caelin?”
“A bit, except they know almost exactly where we are. There’ll be no chance to sneak up this time. The only advantage we have is that unless he’s been drilling them with the farseer since he stole it, his troops are going to be slow to react. I’m not going to pretend it’s going to be easy: we’re going to need a lot of speed, a lot of skill, and a whole lot of luck. Ready?”
“No,” Rigel said.
Lyn squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back and gave her a quick kiss. No time for anything else.
“Too bad,” he said to Rigel with a grin. “Go!”
Kent was appointed captain of the cavalry, and he, Fiora, Florina, Andy, Frank, and four of Murdock’s knights galloped off around the hill into the forest, and the rest of them began to sprint after them. It was true that it would slow them down some and they had no guarantee of concealment from the enemy now, but going through the fields would be even worse. There, they would make better time, and every wyvern on the field would be able to see them and swarm them at once. Not a good trade off. The wyverns would be on them soon enough as it was.
And there was no point in sending Fiora and Florina as decoys. He had ordered them to stay low, ground-bound as much as possible, and not to break the forest canopy except in dire need. With luck, the wyverns would not be able to spot them quickly, might even miss them below. Well, probably not the cavalry – the thunder of their hooves made that difficult, even, as he guessed it might be, muffled by the trees. But the rest of his group might make it through in their wake, and he hoped the battlefield would either be still peaceful or hopelessly confused by that point – either would make things easier for him.
What they needed most besides speed was momentum. If they got caught partway there by a few soldiers, fine, but they couldn’t get bogged down in fighting every soldier that came at them. And Kent knew it too. The two sides would undoubtedly be charging at each other, but if his groups could break through and continue on, and if the other side charged past them and took even a short time to regroup, that would help him too. Although on the other side of the river, they’d be going uphill, which could really kill their charge… and them…
But would Milton be sending his soldiers in waves, or in a solid group? Either had its advantages and disadvantages for Milton… They’d probably be in waves, he decided, and hoped he was right. Now just how many of them were in the forest ahead of them…?
Even now as he ran beside Zephiel, who was once again on horseback, with Murdock and the rest of his knights behind them, he felt the old pressure of frustration of not knowing what was ahead of him, where his people were, of not being able to help them directly, directing them to the weak points of the enemy’s formation to shatter it into retreating. His pulse was pounding; he could feel it in his throat, in his chest, in his hands: a combination of running, nerves, and pure, desperate adrenaline. He knew it wouldn’t stop until after the battle. But it usually helped him rather than hindered him, streamlining his thoughts and sparking the sort of crazy but effective ideas that upset Renee whenever she saw them.
He couldn’t hear Milton; he was probably giving orders to his own troops. Even if he’d somehow found a way to temporarily switch it back to its original settings to converse with him on the hilltop, it wasn’t possible to talk to the ones marked as enemies, which meant Ceniro and his group right now.
“You think you can fool me by sending your cavalry on ahead?” Milton’s voice. Speak of the devil.
“Kinda busy, here, go away,” Ceniro growled back. Well, he wasn’t fighting or giving orders, but he was thinking, and running, and didn’t have energy for much else.
A low chuckle. “I certainly shall not. I have all the advantages, but against your nonsensically effective tactics, I want it all. If you are already admitting you’re off-balance, you are basically admitting you are only rushing to your death.”
“You’ve picked this battle very carefully, I can tell. You want so badly to beat me just once, is that it?”
“I only need to beat you once. Of course, it would be satisfying if you did manage to make it here so that I could take care of you myself. But having my soldiers destroy you before you even make it here would be even more satisfying.”
“Don’t count me out yet,” Ceniro said, and had an idea. With Milton talking to him, that meant… “Kent! Report!”
“Scouts encountered and defeated,” Kent said rapidly. “About to cross the river. Expecting heavy resistance on the-”
Ceniro grinned as the farseer cut out. If Milton wanted to bait him, he’d have to open a channel for Ceniro to talk to his friends as well. It was a good thing there wasn’t really a direct communication option on the farseer… although he supposed Milton could mess with the volume so that Ceniro and he were the most prominent. So he’d have to yell to get through to his group. Well, he could yell. It would drive Milton crazy if nothing else.
And the next time the Milton turned the farseer to his group, he’d certainly get an earful of everyone trying to talk to Ceniro at once, he was sure. And either Ceniro would be able to communicate, or Milton would give up and let him plan. Either was good. And now he knew there would be fewer scouts directly ahead… but Milton would probably be sending in a pile of soldiers to make up for it. So they’d have to go around and look for more scouts on purpose.
A horrible scream came from his right and without even thinking he bolted towards it. A stray thought in the back of his mind pointed out that sane people would run away from the screams of dying men, but it sounded like Wil and if Wil was in trouble, Ceniro needed to help. Who was with Wil’s group? Should have been Yens, Caddie, and Erk. As his brain caught up to his actions, he figured that he was probably closest to Wil’s group anyway. He just hoped Florina hadn’t heard or recognized the scream…
He noticed Zephiel had altered course to stay behind him as he crashed through the undergrowth, and Murdock and his knights had followed him. What was that? Murdock was trying to say something to him.
“Sir Ceniro! Leave your man and press on! We will fail in our mission if we stop now!”
“Shut up and keep moving!” Ceniro snapped back. Utterly rude, and he saw Zephiel flinch, but he couldn’t deal with this puzzle, the panic over Wil’s scream, Milton’s nagging, and insubordinate generals who weren’t used to taking orders from anyone, let alone his idiosyncrasy, all at the same time.
Even if they had to leave Wil behind, he wasn’t going to let him die.
“Sir Ceniro-”
A quintet of wyverns tore through the treetops, trying to encircle them. Drat. He wasn’t up to fighting wyverns personally-
Yes, he was. He was just another weak unit, but even weak units could be effective. “You two that way! You two, that way! Murdock, take out that one! Zephiel, with me!”
“But I’m sworn to prot-”
“Do it!” Ceniro yelled at Murdock. The wyverns were closing fast. If any more reinforcements showed up right now…
Not time to worry about that. Time to fight. He relaxed his deathgrip on his katana so he could swing it properly, and charged at the wyvern, straight at terrifying, roaring fangs and claws. “Zephiel! I’ll keep its attention! Get around it!” He’d seen Legault and Guy do it before…
“Aye!” Zephiel turned his horse’s charge slightly, away from the wyvern rider’s lance; of course the rider had heard his order, but apparently the rider thought them both easy prey.
And as the rider turned his wyvern to anticipate Zephiel, Ceniro ducked in even closer under the lance, dashing around behind the dangerously flailing wing, narrowly avoided getting knocked over by the lashing tail or stepped on, braced himself, grabbed hold of the rider’s leg, dragged him off, and slashed.
Blood spurted over his blade, and he nearly froze, mumbling an instinctive, strangled “sorry-!” but the rampaging wyvern beside him snapped him out of his shock and he nearly tripped over his own feet scrambling away. A moment later the wyvern screeched and fell still.
Zephiel appeared a moment later, cantering around with his sword also bloody. “I thought I was supposed to…”
“Bluff,” Ceniro said. “Let’s go help Murdock as fast as we can, we can’t stay here!”
Even as they cleared out the other four wyverns, a big piece of his brain was playing that moment on repeat, that moment when his sword had sliced cleanly through the wyvern rider’s throat between his chestplate and his helmet. He shook himself, then slapped himself hard. He couldn’t be distracted by that right now.
It wasn’t as if he’d never used his sword to harm another person before. He’d fought in battles since he’d started being a mercenary, using himself as he would any other unit, albeit a very green one at first.
It was just the first time he’d actually killed someone.
He heard an explosion. Erk was still fighting! So Wil would be nearby… if he was still alive.