“What are you looking so petrified about?” he asked. “That mace of yours looks special. It is, isn’t it?”
“Um, sort of.” Replied the boy. “It does strange things. It hits many times harder than a normal mace.”
“Fascinating.” The pirate replied casually as the horses drew closer. “And where perchance might someone such as myself purchase an item like that for myself?” he asked.
“You can’t buy them.” Morell said, shifting uneasily as he watched the horses begin to crest the plain. “They were given to us by Bohga the cyclops.”
“A cyclops is fashioning magic weapons for wandering children, you say? Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. I hope you know how to use such an extravagant weapon because here they come.”
The riders crested the hill, horses at full stride and frothing at the mouth. Hoxley thought she heard a faint rumble and looked overhead to find dark swirling clouds appearing out of nothingness. Seeing this, she glanced behind her to find Siouxsie standing near the prince with her arms raised to the sky, eyes burning white like her twins’ fireballs. The faun girl smacked her fist across her heart to ready her courage and gave her spear a twirl before holding it aloft for all to see.
“Talk to each other!” Hoxley called out to them. “Yell out what you see! They’re almost upon us!”
“The real attack isn’t from the horse!” shouted Atticus. “It’s from the rider! Keep your guard up! Don’t hesitate to be vicious! They’ll give you no quarter, so give none in return! Adding to the rumbling of storm clouds above, the sounds of forty pounding hooves brought the thunderous din to a fever pitch.
“Here they come! Prepare to defend yourselves!”
THE BATTLE OF THE GRASSY PLAINS:
LOXO MORELL
X X
ROBERT PRINCE DAMRON SIOUXSIE
X X X
ATTICUS HOXLEY
X X
X X
X LORD X
X BALTUS X
X HORSEMEN X
X X
The horses came in hard and fast, their hooves kicking up grass like miniature eruptions of divots. Riders sat high in the saddle, swords at the ready. “Let them pass between us!” And just as Atticus said, the horses stormed so fast that to hesitate would mean a trampled death. One second they were twenty feet out and the blink of an eye later they were already on top of them, coursing a path through their ranks. Several men called out the position of the prince to the others, pointing their swords at the frightened boy with the shield. Two at a time they came barreling in, companions dodging and ducking to stay out of the way of the stampeding legs and sharp blades.
Harsh “CLANGS” of steel and lyythium sang out as Atticus, Hoxley and the others parried the strikes the soldiers doled as they passed. Witches threw themselves flat and rolled out of the paths of their attackers. Loxo sidestepped his charging foe and masterfully, deflecting the sword coming for his neck. Nine came and went, passing entirely through the group and out the other side, but the last one, feeling ambitious, slowed and turned, managing to grasp half a handful of Prince Damron’s pack. For his effort to concentrate on the prize, he made the mistake of taking his eyes off the witch covered head to toe in black cloaks and scarves behind him.
“Tinder and Cinder!” Robert shouted, loosing a flurry of fireballs. Five scorching projectiles leapt from his hands. One sailed wide but the other four caught the rider all along his right side; two to the abdomen and chest, one to the shoulder and one to the head. The rider shrieked and let go of the prince to flail and bat at the flames singing his hair and ear. Unlike normal fire, magic flame quickly engulfs its targets regardless of its flammability and within seconds the man was covered and being eaten alive by fire. He dropped his sword, waving and screaming. His spooked horse reared, bucking him backwards and the man landed square on his back before falling silent. The horse ran away, almost hitting Siouxsie as it departed.
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The next rider came in from behind the right side of the group, heading straight on a path to cross Morell and head for the prince. The boy took courage in Hoxley’s words and gauged the swiftly approaching horse. Morell’s hands gripped the mace white knuckle tight and he held it high and at the ready. Sharp eyes watched the path of the horse and as it got within striking distance, he shuffled to his left to stay out of its way. The rider’s short sword came down at an angle but he took a hard stance and swung back as hard as he could. Steel shattered against the lyythium, half of the blade sailing overhead and landing somewhere in the grass. Far behind him, Atticus held his spear at the ready and watched the beast as it ran. The older man gauged its path and kept his eyes on Robert to his left who was already firing sizzling shots.
Atticus turned, and as the horseman cleared the place where the witchly shadow stood, he threw the spear directly into the path of the horse’s legs. Years of training and practice bore fruit as the spear landed perfectly in the middle of the horse’s gallop. It missed the front legs but embedded itself into the soil squarely in the path of the back ones. When the animal’s legs bound, it fell forward at an unnatural angle and went skidding across the grass on its chest and neck with its torso and ass facing the sky.
Robert, Loxo and anyone who happened to catch a glimpse watched as the horse’s neck twisted back even further as it continued to fall, the sound of its spine breaking like freshly snapped beans. The rider went over with it as the horse’s heavy rear haunches followed the path of least resistance. It toppled like a felled tree with the rider still in his saddle beneath it and when his outstretched hands, one still holding the hilt of a broken sword and few inches of blade upon it found the ground. Grim curiosity held Robert’s gaze fast as not to miss the ghastly spectacle of the weapon cleaving the rider’s skull a split second before fourteen hundred pounds of horse, tack and armor came slamming down on the rest to seal his doom.
“That was fantastic, Atticus!” Robert bounced with uncharacteristically giddy joy. “Do another! Do it again! Wreck another nag!” Atticus rushed to retrieve his spear before returning to his position.
“Robert! Focus!” Hoxley yelled. “Keep your wits! Here they come again!” No sooner than the words leapt from her tongue, a pair of riders had circled the whole group and were making a path directly for her. The first horse veered slightly away from her and Hoxley found the perfect opportunity to drop to her knees to not only dodge the sword swinging at her but also strike from below. She guided the tip of her spear expertly close enough to cut the cinch of the rider’s saddle. Before jumping back to her hooves. When the man tried to turn his horse to try again, the uncinched pack of leather holding him to the horse failed and he was tossed and tumbling at a dangerous speed. Her large ears caught the sound of more hooves behind and she turned with spear held high just in time to keep from losing her head. “Sprang!” cried the steel off her blue staff.
The horses were coming faster now. To her left, another horsemen came rushing in, swiping at Siouxsie who threw herself flat on the grass just out of reach of a gleaming sword. She jumped to her feet again, dagger at the ready and eyes burning white like the lighting she conjured. Not far from her, another soldier came in from the back of the group, trying to run down Loxo. The pirate feigned a jump away before deflecting the soldier’s sword and slashing him up the side where there was no armor as he passed. The man yelped and tipped out of his saddle. He fell and rolled a painful stop in the middle of the companions next to Prince Damron. The boy wasted no time in jumping to land on him, bashing the riders head with the full force of the shield’s concave. When he pulled the shield away, the man was either unconscious or dead. He didn’t know which but as long as he wasn’t fighting back it mattered very little to him.
Riders circled and passed through the group trying to run them over. Each of the companions dove and jumped to keep from being mangled under hammering hooves. Weapons clashed in all directions. Another rider circled around the left side of the group to barrel head-on at Atticus. The old soldier readied himself and waited for the time to strike as the charging animal drew closer. He was almost upon him when the long whiskers of his woolly moustache began to stand on end. The sky grew a little darker and the temperature of the air sharply dropped. Somewhere on the edge of all the shouting and sounds of battle, the little witch girl shouted something that sounded like a rhyme.
