Cal C Long || Author

TRIGGER WARNINGS: * Explicit language * Explicit Violence *

II

“Watch the flank!” An unclaimed yell. 

The ground was indeed shaking. Not from the clash of battle—but the thundering strike of hooves. 

“Where the fuck did they come from?” 

“Protect the prince! BRACE!”

The shouts startled me to panic. I spun in place, attempting to spot any sign of the emerging threat. Waves of armoured bodies jostled and bounced me, knocking my too-large helmet over my eyes. My heart leapt into my throat as I fumbled against blindness, the thundering building to piercing climax. 

BOOM.

My stomach launched into my ribs as the world tilted, smearing past. I flew several feet before skidding through mud, head ringing as I slammed hard into something. 

Not something.

Someone. 

Terror. The screams of the dying no longer distant. Like a shifting kaleidoscope, chaos slotted into a comprehensible reality. I was on the ground. Alive. Legs pinned beneath a body. And I’d lost my godsdamned shield. 

Boots and hooves stomped around me, churning the ground into reddish paste. I had to get up. Now. Before I was crushed. 

Laughter burst from me as I imagined Klaus learning of my ridiculous death. Conquerer Prince made mulch. A body crumpled beside me, sobering my thoughts. Glazing eyes wasted their final light staring into mine as a mouth worked silently, blood pumping into the mud. 

I turned wild then, clawing and heaving at the dead weight on top of me, slapping at the lolling head, screaming for him to get up, to release me, that his prince demanded it—my child body too weak to wrest itself free. I screamed in frustration, until a shadow falling over me hushed me to silence.

“There you are.” The snort from a monstrous warhorse punctuated the statement. “Little Prince playing at soldiers.” 

A titan of steel sat looking down on me. A guard ran up, sword raised, but the rider dropped him with a casual thrust of his spear. Remembering I had a sword of my own, I creeped a hand towards it. 

“How’re you enjoying having to roll in the dirt like the rest of us?” He raised his visor to spit. “Gods. I bet you’re pissing your breeches, lying there, helpless as a babe. Pathetic.” He levelled the gory tip of his spear at me. “I’d hoped for a better tale than sticking Cornelius’ whelp like a suckling pig. Guess I’ll just have to lie about it.”

My focus never left the tip of that spear as it dove towards me, my arm carving an arc. Metal bit wood. Quaking impact nearly had me lose my grip. Dark eyes widened in surprise as the spear parted earth inches from my neck. A show of defiance, but we both knew I wouldn’t be able to parry the next one.

“Darian!”

Klaus barrelled towards us, shield raised. A crack, the spear splintering like bone beneath his charge.

He’d come to save me.

He spun on his heels, slashing wide, forcing the horse to rear or lose a leg.

The idiot had come to save me.

The rider drew his blade at the peak before the horse brought its hooves down with skull-crushing force.

“Klaus!”

But all he was going to do was get himself killed.

I struggled in renewed desperation. I had to get up. I had to help him.

A familiar BOOM as metal-clad hoof met metal shield and all I could do was watch in dismay as Klaus’ means of protection spun off into the fray. He gasped through teeth, using the momentum to swing his sword up, two-handed, to meet the rider’s blade.

Were Klaus a man fully grown with the conditioning that came from years of training and warmongering, then he would have been able to keep a hold of his sword.

But Klaus was not a man grown.

He was a boy.

—playing at soldiers—

The sword flew from his hands and Klaus could do nothing but wait for the killing blow.

He was going to die.

Because of my father.

Because of me.

A rage lit within me then, burning the panic, the helplessness, to cinders. Klaus turned to me, me, choosing me to be the last image he held in his final moments.

My only friend.

I seethed, the frustration at being useless feeding the rage burgeoning within me. The rider raised his sword, but Klaus didn’t see it. I raised my hand in response, as if to catch the coming blade, or to warn Klaus to run. His mahogany eyes found mine, and it was the apology in them that finally ruptured me.

A shocked cry of pain crescendoed into a shriek—I never knew a man’s voice could reach such a pitch—as fire engulfed the rider and his horse; the cries from beast and man completely indistinguishable.

Klaus had thrown himself into the mud, arms flung over his face. He watched, amazed, as gouts of flame erupted from my outstretched hand. I didn’t relent until the blackened husks toppled to the ground; flesh and bone popping.

Yells of “Weaver!” had the surrounding combatants retreating.

I remained sat, panting, arm aloft.

“Seamstress’ tits, Darian…since when could you pull fire out of your arse?”

I was too incredulous to laugh, but managed to look at the friend I had nearly lost. His eyes scoured my face, and I was glad the residual heat had erased any trace of the tears he would have found there.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

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