Pick Your Battles

“Never let the enemy chose the battlefield.” Sir Danielle Longbow murmured to herself as the enemy charged. “Come on then. You had your chance.” Foremost were the burning skeletons, running headlong into the trap.

“Should we go now?” asked Sir Fao, Danielle’s surest rider.

“Not until they hit the seeds. If we go now they’ll turn back. I want all of them trapped inside. This army is the little problem. I want to deal with the bigger problem.” Looking back at her army, riflemen lined up ready for the first volley, she bit her lip. Time raced along and crawled all at once. Her instincts screamed to charge away on her curaogine, Sir Fao heading the other way. She wanted the battle over with as fast as possible to ride to the aid of her wife. They had to wait. “READY.” The riflemen raised their guns. “AIM.” By the time they were in range the fiery steeds of the undead should be hitting the line of seeds that formed a horseshoe before Danielle’s army. “FIRE!”

One volley hit the forerunners of the cavalry charge. Flaming horses running on blackened bones turned to ash when a silver shot penetrated their skulls or charged onto the curaduile seeds her army had sown before the battle. Reacting to fire as they always did the curaduile seeds sprouted at monstrous speed, soaking up all the energy to fuel their growth. A wall of trees flew up before Danielle’s forces.

“Sir Fao, NOW!” Danielle looked at him, saw his nod, and kicked her steed into a gallop that put wind’s haste to shame.

They galloped north and south as the enemy tried to advance around the growing barrier. Wherever flaming feet stepped they hit the line of seeds. Every time the seeds exploded into huge trees, growing exponentially until the fiery fuel had been extinguished by silver dust scattered across the ground. Each tree picked up the silver shavings, carried them on the bark, and thrust them through the enemy, finding skulls here and there. Infernoste sprung the trap with flaming feet, revealing the trap. Danielle found the open mouth of the trap, marked only by stones in the field. Pulling her sack of seeds from her belt she rode and scattered them, moving north as Sir Fao did the same heading south.

In his eagerness, the young knight emptied his seeds too early, a third of the way across the gap. Grinding her teeth, Danielle tried to be sparing, hoping each seed that fell would be enough to stop what was left of the enemy inside the semi-circle of hungry trees.

Enemy forces retreated as fast as they could towards Danielle and Sir Fao. There were gaps in the wall of trees only because they realised their last way to escape was closing. Danielle’s Nameless Knights had taken up positions outside the gaps, ready to repel the human forces who had marched behind the infernoste if they tried to leave. Danielle’s smarter knights closed the gaps with flaming arrows.

Sir Fao drew his bow and fitted a red arrow, dyed so that archers knew to beware the curaduile wood near the tip. “I’m not a good shot with a bow,” he protested as Danielle stopped beside him, readying her own arrow.

“You won’t have to be. Just hit fire. The arrow will do the rest.” She pulled the string back to her ear. “Not yet.” The enemy were five feet from the line. “Wait.” Two feet. “Loose.”

Sir Fao’s arrow sailed into enemy infantry behind the fiery cavalry charge. Danielle’s arrow hit a horse’s skull and bloomed into a tree midair. The growth flung some back, some to the side, others forward. If some escaped, that was acceptable. She wanted the bulk of them locked inside the trees. Either side of the tree which had just grown was a gap wide enough for three horses to ride out at a time. She aimed for the middle, loosed, then notched another arrow and closed the smaller gap. A dozen flaming steeds charged towards them. The gaps were closing as the enemy stumbled into the trees. Hitting a flaming skeleton as it leapt through the gap to the right of the first tree Danielle saw her work was done. Nothing bigger than a mouse could leave through those trees.

“CIRCLE NORTH,” Danielle shouted. “REGROUP.”

Nodding, Sir Fao snapped the reigns and fled with six of the flaming enemies on his tail. As many followed her as she rushed south, shouting ahead of her for the Nameless Knights to form a line.

Spearheads rose into a hedgehog sea of silver, parted to let her ride through. Alongside her Nameless Knights were grey acolytes of the God of Dire Necessity. Much as she resented needing them Danielle could admit to herself that they stood their ground and fought with equal skill to her knights, if not more.

Danielle’s pearlescent purple steed, a hybrid of dragon scale, curaduile trees, and the flaming steeds the infernoste rode, leaped the three deep line of Crann’s defenders. Stomach in her mouth as she soared weightlessly, she held her breath. That breath exploded from her as Shalakhir landed. Her helm slammed against its neck. She blinked away the pain in her forehead.

Burning horses melted their way through the outstretched spears. One knight screamed as melting steel dripped down the shaft onto her hands. One horse vanished in a puff of ash. The flashing hand of a grey acolyte whipped back to their belt for another silver throwing knife.

A skeleton leaped from its mount into the middle of the defenders. Danielle wanted to fire a silver-tipped arrow, but the risk to her own was too great. Dismounting, she drew her sword. “Shalakhir. Attack them from behind.” The two-storey high creature nodded its long head and circled the skirmish. “Move aside.” Drawing her sword from its scabbard, she waded through her knights to the monster, scorching them all.

Two more of the horses fell to throwing knives. Another skeleton jumped into the fray, taking furious swipes at everyone around until a silver arrow held in a gauntleted hand passed through its eye.

An orange blur burnt the air near her face. Danielle faced her enemy with her sword in hand. Stabbing at its face, she dodged the punch of a black hand wreathed in light that could melt armour in moments. The head ducked to the left, and it rushed her, bent low.

Danielle’s sword aimed low. She held tight as the skull raced towards the tip of her blade. Warping her steel as it struck, the undead leftover of dragon fire vanished into dust on the wind.

A pistol shot rang out, and another. Another horse vanished, black ash blowing over the defenders. Some blinked when the fine powder snuck into their eyes. Another skeleton slid through the gap in the line and took two warriors by the arm. Metal fused with flesh even as it moved on.

“STAB AT THE SKULL. ONLY THE SKULL,” Danielle shouted, pushing her knights aside to be at the next of the infernoste slaughtering her soldiers. Reaching through the melee with her misshapen silver sword, she held the blade over a blackened skull. Though the creature ducked, the blade melted, sending a silver glob dripping down into its eye. It vanished into blowing ash.

The last horse fell to a silver throwing knife as Danielle turned. The same grey acolyte dispatched another skeleton with the next knife.

“They’re done!”

Cries of victory went up among the uninjured. Others, scarred for life, screamed.

“HELP THE WOUNDED.” Danielle looked for her mount. “SHALAKHIR.” It made a sound that contained a horse’s whinnies, a dragon’s roar, and the sound of branches creaking. “MOVE. OUT OF MY WAY.” Steel tides parted for her. Without looking back she rode off around the wooden wall that would hold the army of the Empire of the Holy Flame. “Faster Shalakhir.”

White knuckles under gauntlets gripped the vines the curaogine grew for reigns. The saddle held her, grown at Shalakhir’s will.

The northern skirmish had been a shambles. The six infernoste and their horses that had followed Sir Fao had broken the lines and burnt eighteen of her warriors and two grey acolytes to death.

The battle was won, but any deaths on her side made it a loss for Danielle. She ordered the injured and the dead taken back to Leonor, Crann’s Capital, with an escort. The rest of the force would follow her to the next battle without rest.

“Hold on Lu. I’m coming.”