Richard Baker: The Falcon and The Wolf

“Erin! What did you do?”

“I cast a spell of confusion on them,” the minstrel replied, gasping for breath. “It only lasts a few minutes, but they can’t tell friend from foe.”

“Will it affect all of them?”

She shook her head. “No more than two or three dozen, Gaelin. That’s the limit of my power.”

He scowled and wheeled his horse, trying to see the progress of the whole fight. Streams of goblins were pouring through the flanks on either side, surrounding the Mhoriens.

“Gaelin, over there!” Erin called out a warning and pointed at the center of the goblin assault. Storming ahead of the chaos of the goblin horde, the Iron Guard of Ghoere thun- dered into view, surrounding the crimson wolf-standard of Noered Tuorel. With lances lowered, the Iron Guard charged directly for Gaelin’s banner, riding down both militiamen and goblins in their path. Gaelin was pinned in place; the goblins swarmed around the companies around his Guardians, preventing him from maneuvering. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and wait for Tuorel to ride me down, he thought. The brilliant wrath of his bloodline caught fire in his veins, and with a ringing cry that carried over the entire battlefield, he shouted, “Knights Guardian! Take the enemy standard!

Charge!”

He spurred Blackbrand ahead, leaping into the fray, as his friends and followers drove after him. Churning up divots of mud, the mighty stallion flattened anyone in his path. In an unearthly silence, Gaelin’s world brightened and condensed until there was nothing beyond his body, the horse beneath him, and the line of Ghoeran knights only a spear’s throw away.

His blood burned like molten gold in his heart, and the world came to a halt as each hoofbeat, each stride, carried him one step closer to glorious annihilation. The Wolf of Ghoere fluttered just beyond the front ranks, and beside it Gaelin saw the black, wolf-graven armor of Noered Tuorel. He screamed a wordless challenge, and the world went black as the two lines of knights collided in the center of the battle.

A lance point shattered on Gaelin’s shield, jarring him to his toes and knocking the breath out of his body, and Blackbrand met another horse breast-to-breast and drove the smaller animal to the ground. Horses screamed, and men roared and shrieked in a hellish chorus. For a moment, Gaelin was lost in a senseless whirlwind of impact and chaos as he crashed through the Ghoerans, hammering his sword down on anyone nearby as the battle carried them out of his reach.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Boeric fall from the saddle, unhorsed by a Ghoeran lance, but Erin reached out to catch the Falcon banner before it fell. Shouting defiantly, she led the Mhorien knights toward Gaelin, while Lord Anduine guarded the standard against a furious attack.

“Gaelin Mhoried!” Despite the maelstrom of noise and confusion that surrounded him, Gaelin heard his name cutting through the chaos, ringing in challenge. Tuorel was fighting his way toward him, and Gaelin turned Blackbrand with his knees and cut down a Ghoeran knight who stood between them. As the battle hung in the balance, he came sword-to-sword with Tuorel. “Are you ready to die, Gaelin?” Tuorel screamed. “Your reign ends today!”

Gaelin stood in his stirrups to smash his heavy sword down on the baron, but Tuorel parried the blow with a sword that gleamed with silver fire. With unearthly quickness, the baro n returned Gaelin’s blow, and only a desperate block with his shield saved Gaelin from injury. Tuorel struck again before Gaelin could manage a reply of his own, a blow that glanced o ff Gaelin’s helm and left his ears ringing. The sword’s enchanted, he realized. The flow of the battle pushed him past Tuorel, and he recovered his balance and readied his sword as he turned Blackbrand to face the Wolf of Ghoere again.

“You murdered my father, my brother, my sister! I will have vengeance, Tuorel!” Gaelin spurred Blackbrand ahead, resuming the attack. He closed within striking range and unleashed a fusillade of hacks and thrusts, trying to pierce Tuorel’s guard. But the baron parried or deflected each blow, his sword leaping to meet Gaelin’s steel with liquid speed and grace. As they fought past each other again, Tuorel managed to slip the blade under Gaelin’s guard. The sword cut through Gaelin’s breastplate like a razor through soft leather, gouging a long and bloody slash on his left side.

Gaelin bit back a cry of pain, reared, and spun around to follow Tuorel, attacking from the baron’s left flank. Even without the enchantments of his blade, Tuorel was a superb swordsman, one of the best Gaelin had ever seen, and he twisted in his saddle to parry behind his back and then slash at Gaelin backhanded. While Gaelin tried to recover, the baron wheeled his own horse, and brought his weapon down in an overpowering blow that Gaelin could only meet with the flat of his blade.

Gaelin’s sword shattered into a dozen pieces. Tuorel’s blow slapped against his helm again, but most of the baron’s strength had been spent by breaking the sword, and his stroke only dazed Gaelin. Tuorel shouted in triumph and unhorsed him with the next swing; Gaelin tumbled heavily to the ground and landed badly, losing his breath again as blood streamed through the rents in his armor.

His vision blurring, Gaelin raised himself to his knees and shook his head. A few feet away, Tuorel slid down from his saddle and advanced, raising his sword for the coup de grace.

“The Mhoried blood is mine,” Tuorel cackled. “The Iron Throne is in my grasp!”

“Not while I live, you bastard,” Gaelin growled. Suddenly, it came upon him again, the crystalline certainty and divine fire that dispelled his pain and exhaustion like a white-hot flame shrivelling a scrap of paper. Beneath his hand, he felt the haft of a fallen knight’s mace, a wicked weapon nearly four feet long, with a head of iron flanges.

“We’ll remedy that in a moment,” Tuorel snarled. He lunged forward, stabbing at Gaelin’s heart.

Gaelin seized the handle of the mace and exploded into motion. The strength of his blood empowered him, quickened his reflexes and his aim. The world seemed to slow in comparison. The heavy mace was light as a willow switch in his hand, and as he rose he brought its iron head in a long swing that caught Tuorel under his raised arm and crumpled his armor like tin. The force of the blow threw the baron spinning through the air to land heavily ten feet away. Gaelin leapt after him, swinging again.

Tuorel wheezed, a great bloody exhalation from his shattered ribs, and turned to parry Gaelin’s strike. But Gaelin beat down his guard and shattered Tuorel’s shoulder, smashing the baron to the ground and jarring the enchanted sword from the baron’s grasp. The blade spun away to lie in the mud, its gleam fading. Tuorel screamed in pain and rage.

“No! He promised me! He promised me!”

In his white fire, Gaelin heard the baron’s words. He raised the mace one more time and crushed the fearsome wolf-visage of Tuorel’s helm. The helmet crumpled, as Tuorel’s neck snapped and his corpse slammed into the ground. Gaelin sank to his knees, suddenly exhausted beyond his endurance, uncaring of the battle that still went on around him.

Behind him, the wolf-standard fell as Lord Anduine dragged it down. As his senses darkened toward unconsciousness, Gaelin heard the thunder of Baesil’s cavalrymen returning to the fray.

Gaelin remembered little of the rest of the battle. He suspected he’d relied too long on the brilliant wrath to sustain him, and he had driven himself past his human limits. His limbs were weak, his sight was dim, and sounds seemed distant and far away. It was as if some elemental fury had burned itself to ashes, leaving him as cold and empty as an autumn husk. Somehow, his guards and captains carried him through the rest of the day.