The wagon's increasingly ominous creaks and high-pitched squeals rose above the thrumming of the horse’s hooves, distorting my sense of time and distance. The wagon shuddered as we overwhelmed its steel and leather belt suspension, and I found myself holding my breath to the point of seeing dark spots before my eyes. Rivulets of sweat had gathered on my forehead, and with every resounding call of a brass horn, they would cascade down into my eyes with a painful, salty sting.
Tetora grabbed my shoulder roughly, pulling me away from one of the triangular side holes I had fixated on. “How many are there?”
Reminded by his presence to breathe again, I inhaled with a choking half-snort. “I have no idea?” I responded once I could muster enough concentration to reply. “They’re still too far away for me to see.”
“Close your eyes and count them!” he ordered urgently. “How many blue lights do you see?”
Blue lights when I close my eyes? Shutting my eyes tightly, I initially saw nothing out of the ordinary. The customary flickers of color were there, like always, but ophthalmologists told me countless times that seeing phosphenes was expected. They shifted and swirled as I concentrated, desperate to identify anything blue or some meaningful pattern among them.
“I can’t…” I trailed off, suddenly distracted by a sea of azure holy stars rising from the darkness. They hovered in place, radiating a pale blue light as they slowly spun on their axes. One star, larger and brighter than the rest, set the scene ablaze with a sudden lash of electric blue flames, knocking out my vision completely. As everything faded into a swirl of neon blue light, a severe and commanding shout of “Captain Raelynn Lightbringer! Surrender immediately or else!” pierced through my mind, filling my heart with dread. I had heard that stern, terrible, and eternally unappeased voice before in my nightmares, constantly reminding me of my numerous shortcomings.
“Half a hundred at least. I couldn’t count them all,” I admitted after a few moments with an uncontrollable shiver. “There was a big one that just took out the rest.” Feeling like I had just stared into the blazing sun itself, I rubbed my eyes without relief. Surrender immediately or else…
Aleph began smashing the more useless barrels in the back of the wagon with his war hammer, tossing their sharp remnants into the road behind us. “We need to lessen the load on the horses! Ditch anything that isn’t essential!”
Nora peered out the back of the wagon briefly before gesturing slowly in a wide arc. “Ventos pulverulentus…!”
At first, I thought it was simply the horses kicking up extra dust from the road with their faster gait, but the dust billowed out in a rippling, u-shaped pattern behind us. Again and again, Nora repeated her words, filling the air with a dirty, smog-like haze. “How much… longer… till we get to the hill?” she asked between ragged breaths.
“Keep it up for a few more minutes! I’m going to cut across the fields!” Vernie screamed, and Nora readjusted the pulsating waves of dust in response. The wagon then seemed to jump and hover momentarily as we broke off from the road onto a grassy plain.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them we probably weren’t fooling anyone. Makeshift caltrops from broken barrels? Clouds of obscuring dust? Clever in thought, but probably just mere annoyances to a mounted cavalry communicating our movements almost instantly between squads.
The others needed to get away. Somehow, I just knew they’d be used against me.
“Which one of us do you think they’re really after?” I asked Aleph quietly to gauge his perspective, realizing I could hear a thundering counterpoint in the distance to our horses’ gallops.
Aleph took too long to answer, pretending he was looking for more debris to throw. “It’s hard to say.”
“Guess it doesn’t matter…” I replied solemnly, knowing we both knew the truth. We weren’t going to let the other know, though.
The wagon lurched to an abrupt halt with a loud screech, dumping us all towards the back tailgate. Tetora and Aleph raced each other up the hill, and the rest of us followed in their wake. The view was undeniably beautiful, except it was marred by the encroaching tide of swarming blue pennons from all directions. Moderate breaks were visible in their formations to the north, but they were disappearing at an alarming rate as they closed ranks around us. Weren’t there any other options?
I slammed my eyes shut and willed myself to concentrate on the swirling, pulsating colors that checker-boarded before my eyelids. The blue stars converged, but I saw tiny pin-pricks of silver way off to the west.
“Silver… silver stars now as well,” I said, pointing in defeat at a distant mountain pass. “There’s a bunch of them just beyond there…” Now, a second army was in our path. We were completely screwed!
“Ecclesia’s Order… this far west?” Aleph turned to Vernie, his brow suspended somewhere between concern and wonder. “Do you have any intel about this?”
“No!” Vernie replied emphatically, already disengaging the horses from the wagon. “I swear, I would have told you if I had known anything like that!”
“Rae,” Aleph called out urgently as he quickly tacked the horses, readying them for riding. “We might have a chance if we just get to them. The Silver order is much more reasonable!” Wait, we could trust them? Oh, but we wouldn’t make it unless…
I promptly mounted Cinder the moment she was free. “Let’s make a break for it!” I replied in a falsely optimistic tone as I watched the others follow my lead. I really am a hypocrite, saying we should stick together and speak up when there’s a concern. But I was the leader and had to act like everything would be okay. They needed that sliver of hope to make the impossible happen.
“Hey, gimme a hand up!” Nora called from Cinder’s flank.
Simple math alone should have prepared me for this issue. “I think you should ride with Vernie,” I frowned. “She’s probably more skilled at riding double.” No, I was not making any sort of innuendo there.
“I want to ride with you!” Nora insisted. “I’ll be useful, too! They’re too far away now, but I’ll hit ‘em with Fulgura once they get close!”
“Lightning sounds like an easy win,” I replied. “But are you okay with roasting a platoon of holy knights alive in their armor? And that’s only if you catch them all off guard, which I wouldn’t count on…”
Nora opened her mouth in retort, then pulled it shut with a sigh. “It’s like we’re doing this on hard mode. Ugh.” She scratched her cheek. “Somnia… Somnus…”
“Ultum Somnum,” Tetora muttered. “He would use that to put our enemies to sleep–” he stopped short with a half-roar, turning away. “Just use those words when the time is right!”
“I’ll target their horses,” Nora declared as her eyes glittered. “You’re okay with that, at least?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Just be sure to hold on tight to Vernie.”
“I just said I’m going to ride with y–”
“No,” I said firmly. “Captain’s orders.” Sorry, Nora, but this is where we part.
Nora mouthed something most likely condescending under her breath, but she ultimately mounted Vernie’s horse with her assistance.
Focusing on my posture, I adjusted the grip on Cinder’s reins and urged her forward with a throaty cluck. “Spread out a little and look for weak openings! Do whatever you can to break through!” I commanded as if I knew exactly what I was talking about.
They obliged with the bare minimum of spread, still crowding me more than I was comfortable with. I was about to complain, but once again, that blusterous, blood-chilling horn resounded throughout the now stale air. Trembling, I urged Cinder to go faster.
No matter how swift Cinder was, she couldn’t outrun a well-trained warhorse. She tried her best, though, as the rest did, cascading across the expansive grassy plains before us.
Nora, holding on for dear life, her arms wrapped around Vernie’s waist, turned and gave me an apprehensive look. “Fog?” she mouthed in exaggeration.
Perfect. I nodded emphatically.
Her fingers wiggled almost imperceptibly, and a sudden fog whipped up in swirls around us.
“Stick together!” Aleph shouted in alarm as they continued to gallop off.
I figured the fog would only last a few minutes, as she would soon need to put the enemy horses to bed, so I pulled back on Cinder’s reins. No holy knight, no matter what Order or Rank, would shoot someone in complete surrender. I couldn’t take half a hundred of them, anyway. Cinder and I retreated out of the fog, searching for a wide-open space, where I threw down my weapons and supplies as loudly as possible.
“I, Raelynn Lightbringer, request quarter!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I pulled down my hood. The cavalry’s advance halted as the wind died around us, causing their flags to droop. A squad of the most decorated knights closed rank in front of me, their agile horses appearing to walk sideways.
A giant black warhorse shoved its way forward, breaking the line. His rider pulled off his decorated helmet, revealing a short crop of platinum hair and the hardest eyes I had ever seen, devoid of anything remotely resembling warmth. His chiseled features were harshly sculpted into a face of eternal discontent. He waited a moment, his chilling gaze paralyzing me. I tried to summon my aura, but something oppressive hanging about the area halted me. It was as if there was no goodwill to be found. He turned to his right and snapped his fingers once.
The mounted knight beside him abruptly aimed a crossbow. Before I could react, a bolt flew from the bow, striking Cinder. With a soul-piercing scream, she bucked me from the saddle. As I slammed into the ground, she continued thrashing wildly as she roared and whirled.
“You forgot to kneel,” the captain explained emotionlessly. “Be thankful I have rectified this lapse in our conduct so I can properly grant you the quarter you requested.” The captain who threatened me to surrender…!
Dizziness and nausea engulfed me as I tried to rise from the ground, where I saw the swirling smoke of disappearing dark runes around my feet. Had someone cast a spell on me? Pain radiated down my right shoulder into my hand, with my wrist hanging gruesomely out of place. I stared incredulously at the both of them while they ordered the others to secure my horse.
“Get one of the priests to silence it, then send it back for proper training,” the horseshooter shouted once Cinder was trapped.
“At once, Lieutenant Balor!” one of the other knights responded. Balor… Balor the what? What was he, again?
“How could you… do such a… terrible thing?!” I spluttered in fear and anger at them both, my rapid breathing threatening to overwhelm my speaking ability. The heavy tension in the air continued to press down on my thoughts, forcing me to keep my mouth shut about my darkest suspicions.
The captain drew himself up in his saddle, folding his arms crossly. "First, you refused to include my Order in the final assault on the castle of the Demon King. And now you have the audacity to return and think you can circumvent my authority in Turri? Why must you persist in being such a disappointment? I'm beginning to think I've raised a truly disobedient daughter."
Euphridia
The wagon's increasingly ominous creaks and high-pitched squeals rose above the thrumming of the horse’s hooves, distorting my sense of time and distance. The wagon shuddered as we overwhelmed its steel and leather belt suspension, and I found myself holding my breath to the point of seeing dark spots before my eyes. Rivulets of sweat had gathered on my forehead, and with every resounding call of a brass horn, they would cascade down into my eyes with a painful, salty sting.
Tetora grabbed my shoulder roughly, pulling me away from one of the triangular side holes I had fixated on. “How many are there?”
Reminded by his presence to breathe again, I inhaled with a choking half-snort. “I have no idea?” I responded once I could muster enough concentration to reply. “They’re still too far away for me to see.”
“Close your eyes and count them!” he ordered urgently. “How many blue lights do you see?”
Blue lights when I close my eyes? Shutting my eyes tightly, I initially saw nothing out of the ordinary. The customary flickers of color were there, like always, but ophthalmologists told me countless times that seeing phosphenes was expected. They shifted and swirled as I concentrated, desperate to identify anything blue or some meaningful pattern among them.
“I can’t…” I trailed off, suddenly distracted by a sea of azure holy stars rising from the darkness. They hovered in place, radiating a pale blue light as they slowly spun on their axes. One star, larger and brighter than the rest, set the scene ablaze with a sudden lash of electric blue flames, knocking out my vision completely. As everything faded into a swirl of neon blue light, a severe and commanding shout of “Captain Raelynn Lightbringer! Surrender immediately or else!” pierced through my mind, filling my heart with dread. I had heard that stern, terrible, and eternally unappeased voice before in my nightmares, constantly reminding me of my numerous shortcomings.
“Half a hundred at least. I couldn’t count them all,” I admitted after a few moments with an uncontrollable shiver. “There was a big one that just took out the rest.” Feeling like I had just stared into the blazing sun itself, I rubbed my eyes without relief. Surrender immediately or else…
Aleph began smashing the more useless barrels in the back of the wagon with his war hammer, tossing their sharp remnants into the road behind us. “We need to lessen the load on the horses! Ditch anything that isn’t essential!”
Nora peered out the back of the wagon briefly before gesturing slowly in a wide arc. “Ventos pulverulentus…!”
At first, I thought it was simply the horses kicking up extra dust from the road with their faster gait, but the dust billowed out in a rippling, u-shaped pattern behind us. Again and again, Nora repeated her words, filling the air with a dirty, smog-like haze. “How much… longer… till we get to the hill?” she asked between ragged breaths.
“Keep it up for a few more minutes! I’m going to cut across the fields!” Vernie screamed, and Nora readjusted the pulsating waves of dust in response. The wagon then seemed to jump and hover momentarily as we broke off from the road onto a grassy plain.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them we probably weren’t fooling anyone. Makeshift caltrops from broken barrels? Clouds of obscuring dust? Clever in thought, but probably just mere annoyances to a mounted cavalry communicating our movements almost instantly between squads.
The others needed to get away. Somehow, I just knew they’d be used against me.
“Which one of us do you think they’re really after?” I asked Aleph quietly to gauge his perspective, realizing I could hear a thundering counterpoint in the distance to our horses’ gallops.
Aleph took too long to answer, pretending he was looking for more debris to throw. “It’s hard to say.”
“Guess it doesn’t matter…” I replied solemnly, knowing we both knew the truth. We weren’t going to let the other know, though.
The wagon lurched to an abrupt halt with a loud screech, dumping us all towards the back tailgate. Tetora and Aleph raced each other up the hill, and the rest of us followed in their wake. The view was undeniably beautiful, except it was marred by the encroaching tide of swarming blue pennons from all directions. Moderate breaks were visible in their formations to the north, but they were disappearing at an alarming rate as they closed ranks around us. Weren’t there any other options?
I slammed my eyes shut and willed myself to concentrate on the swirling, pulsating colors that checker-boarded before my eyelids. The blue stars converged, but I saw tiny pin-pricks of silver way off to the west.
“Silver… silver stars now as well,” I said, pointing in defeat at a distant mountain pass. “There’s a bunch of them just beyond there…” Now, a second army was in our path. We were completely screwed!
“Ecclesia’s Order… this far west?” Aleph turned to Vernie, his brow suspended somewhere between concern and wonder. “Do you have any intel about this?”
“No!” Vernie replied emphatically, already disengaging the horses from the wagon. “I swear, I would have told you if I had known anything like that!”
“Rae,” Aleph called out urgently as he quickly tacked the horses, readying them for riding. “We might have a chance if we just get to them. The Silver order is much more reasonable!” Wait, we could trust them? Oh, but we wouldn’t make it unless…
I promptly mounted Cinder the moment she was free. “Let’s make a break for it!” I replied in a falsely optimistic tone as I watched the others follow my lead. I really am a hypocrite, saying we should stick together and speak up when there’s a concern. But I was the leader and had to act like everything would be okay. They needed that sliver of hope to make the impossible happen.
“Hey, gimme a hand up!” Nora called from Cinder’s flank.
Simple math alone should have prepared me for this issue. “I think you should ride with Vernie,” I frowned. “She’s probably more skilled at riding double.” No, I was not making any sort of innuendo there.
“I want to ride with you!” Nora insisted. “I’ll be useful, too! They’re too far away now, but I’ll hit ‘em with Fulgura once they get close!”
“Lightning sounds like an easy win,” I replied. “But are you okay with roasting a platoon of holy knights alive in their armor? And that’s only if you catch them all off guard, which I wouldn’t count on…”
Nora opened her mouth in retort, then pulled it shut with a sigh. “It’s like we’re doing this on hard mode. Ugh.” She scratched her cheek. “Somnia… Somnus…”
“Ultum Somnum,” Tetora muttered. “He would use that to put our enemies to sleep–” he stopped short with a half-roar, turning away. “Just use those words when the time is right!”
“I’ll target their horses,” Nora declared as her eyes glittered. “You’re okay with that, at least?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Just be sure to hold on tight to Vernie.”
“I just said I’m going to ride with y–”
“No,” I said firmly. “Captain’s orders.” Sorry, Nora, but this is where we part.
Nora mouthed something most likely condescending under her breath, but she ultimately mounted Vernie’s horse with her assistance.
Focusing on my posture, I adjusted the grip on Cinder’s reins and urged her forward with a throaty cluck. “Spread out a little and look for weak openings! Do whatever you can to break through!” I commanded as if I knew exactly what I was talking about.
They obliged with the bare minimum of spread, still crowding me more than I was comfortable with. I was about to complain, but once again, that blusterous, blood-chilling horn resounded throughout the now stale air. Trembling, I urged Cinder to go faster.
No matter how swift Cinder was, she couldn’t outrun a well-trained warhorse. She tried her best, though, as the rest did, cascading across the expansive grassy plains before us.
Nora, holding on for dear life, her arms wrapped around Vernie’s waist, turned and gave me an apprehensive look. “Fog?” she mouthed in exaggeration.
Perfect. I nodded emphatically.
Her fingers wiggled almost imperceptibly, and a sudden fog whipped up in swirls around us.
“Stick together!” Aleph shouted in alarm as they continued to gallop off.
I figured the fog would only last a few minutes, as she would soon need to put the enemy horses to bed, so I pulled back on Cinder’s reins. No holy knight, no matter what Order or Rank, would shoot someone in complete surrender. I couldn’t take half a hundred of them, anyway. Cinder and I retreated out of the fog, searching for a wide-open space, where I threw down my weapons and supplies as loudly as possible.
“I, Raelynn Lightbringer, request quarter!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I pulled down my hood. The cavalry’s advance halted as the wind died around us, causing their flags to droop. A squad of the most decorated knights closed rank in front of me, their agile horses appearing to walk sideways.
A giant black warhorse shoved its way forward, breaking the line. His rider pulled off his decorated helmet, revealing a short crop of platinum hair and the hardest eyes I had ever seen, devoid of anything remotely resembling warmth. His chiseled features were harshly sculpted into a face of eternal discontent. He waited a moment, his chilling gaze paralyzing me. I tried to summon my aura, but something oppressive hanging about the area halted me. It was as if there was no goodwill to be found. He turned to his right and snapped his fingers once.
The mounted knight beside him abruptly aimed a crossbow. Before I could react, a bolt flew from the bow, striking Cinder. With a soul-piercing scream, she bucked me from the saddle. As I slammed into the ground, she continued thrashing wildly as she roared and whirled.
“You forgot to kneel,” the captain explained emotionlessly. “Be thankful I have rectified this lapse in our conduct so I can properly grant you the quarter you requested.” The captain who threatened me to surrender…!
Dizziness and nausea engulfed me as I tried to rise from the ground, where I saw the swirling smoke of disappearing dark runes around my feet. Had someone cast a spell on me? Pain radiated down my right shoulder into my hand, with my wrist hanging gruesomely out of place. I stared incredulously at the both of them while they ordered the others to secure my horse.
“Get one of the priests to silence it, then send it back for proper training,” the horseshooter shouted once Cinder was trapped.
“At once, Lieutenant Balor!” one of the other knights responded. Balor… Balor the what? What was he, again?
“How could you… do such a… terrible thing?!” I spluttered in fear and anger at them both, my rapid breathing threatening to overwhelm my speaking ability. The heavy tension in the air continued to press down on my thoughts, forcing me to keep my mouth shut about my darkest suspicions.
The captain drew himself up in his saddle, folding his arms crossly. "First, you refused to include my Order in the final assault on the castle of the Demon King. And now you have the audacity to return and think you can circumvent my authority in Turri? Why must you persist in being such a disappointment? I'm beginning to think I've raised a truly disobedient daughter."
Euphridia
