Martin Hengst - The Last Swordmage

The archers riddled them with arrows, but they continued on their inexorable course toward the human lines. Calls for resupply met with answering shouts that ammo supplies were critically low. The Captain bellowed for the archers to withdraw and they climbed down off the platforms. The front lines were nearly on each other now. At the Captain’s command, the assembled soldiers drew their weapons. The sound of ringing metal echoed up and down the line. Tiadaria spun her scimitars back and forth, testing their balance and her range.

Faxon called retreat for the Quints. The mages would fall back and reassemble to offer what support they could, but their offensive powers were limited by the close quarters the battle would take. There was too much of a risk of hitting their own people accidentally. The armies met, steel clashing against claw.

Tiadaria slipped into sphere-sight and ran for the edge of the platform. At the end, she leapt into the air, tumbling head over heels, out over the front lines and down into the mass of Xarundi warriors. Her arms flashed out as she fell, one blade slicing easily through a skull, the other severing a spine below the ribs. Her dance was as graceful as it was deadly. To her eyes, masses of black vanished in pulses of brilliant white light. Darkness had fallen in the physical realm, the soldiers struggling to hold the line in the black.

Brilliant luminescent globes appeared above the battlefield, and Tiadaria shifted her focus long enough to see that they were just as bright in the real world as they were in the sphere. The Quints had summoned miniature suns and set them blazing above the chaos. The humans quickly recovered from the flash blindness and pressed their enemies back.

The Captain was far off to her left, flowing through the tide of Xarundi bodies as effortlessly as she had just moments before. He was covered in blood. It was sprayed across his face like war paint. Tiadaria touched her cheek and found that she was covered in it as well. There was no time to think about how many enemies she had killed to be coated with that much blood. The Xarundi were pressing their attack and she had to defend.

Shifting, she waded back into the fray. Later, when she thought about that night, Tiadaria wouldn’t be able to say how long she had fought or how many Xarundi she had slain. She only knew that as the battle ground toward its end, that the battlefield was thick with the dead and dying from both sides and that it was difficult to walk on the blood-slicked grass.

The tide of the battle had turned. The Xarundi were in retreat, the human soldiers giving chase across the field. As Tiadaria prepared to follow, a searing pain shot through her head and she dropped to her knees, her weapons slipping from her hands. A soldier behind her decapitated a straggling beast-man as it fell toward her, its claws extended.

The beast crumpled and Tia struggled to stand, fighting against a wave of nausea so powerful that it threatened to overwhelm her. At first, she thought the collar had been the cause of the sudden pain, but looking across the field, she saw a massive Xarundi warrior, half again as tall as the others. The beast held the Captain aloft, his long talons protruding from the Captains back, glistening with blood.

The creature raised its other arm to strike at the Captain, but it never got the chance. Spells from Faxon and Adamon slammed into the beast, spinning it into the air and away from the Captain, who fell in a crumpled heap to the ground.

Leaving her swords where they lay, Tiadaria raced toward him, vaulting over bodies and dodging still living warriors as they came between her and her only goal. She ran for what seemed like hours, but finally she reached him.

The Captain’s armor was marred by huge gashes, the metal rings broken around the ragged edges of wounds that went all the way through his body. His lower half was slick with blood, the same blood that trickled from his nose and bubbled at the corner of his mouth. Tiadaria called for a cleric, but she knew in her heart that there was no magic powerful enough to save him. His eyes rolled, showing far too much white and she grabbed his head, crushing him to her chest as if she could take his entire essence into her.

“You…” He coughed, blood and spittle flying from his lips. His breaths came in long, wet rattling gasps. “Made me proud. Little one.”

“Oh Sir,” Tiadaria sobbed, tears etching tiny pale paths through the blood spattered on her face. “Please don’t leave me, I need you.”

He shook his head slightly, closing his eyes. For a moment, Tiadaria was sure that he had gone. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her, saw her, with total clarity.

“You’ll always have me in your heart, little one.” His voice was strong, and clear, an echo of the brass thunder that had called the warriors to arms just a few hours before. He raised his hand to caress her cheek, and then he was gone. The tension went out of his body and he was still.

Tiadaria held him that way for a long time. Finally, she reached up and brushed his eyes closed with the tips of her fingers, closing the eyes that had seen so much and told her even more. It wasn’t for another few moments that she realized that her sobbing was the only sound she could hear. Looking up, she saw faces around her she recognized. Torus and Faxon, Adamon, the soldiers she had fought beside. Valyn stood there, a bloody graze across his forehead, his armor much dented, pierced by claw, and burnt by spell. They were ranged around her in a wide circle; sword and staff plunged into the earth.

In that simple accord, all of them standing as one, in unison, they honored their fallen hero. For the Captain had been a hero to all of them, on the battlefield and off, for as long as any of them could remember. Their vigil touched her in a way that no words ever would. Her throat was so tight she couldn’t speak. The men bowed their heads even as a pathway opened up through the ranks.

Heron Greymalkin, stooped over his cane, made his way slowly into the middle of the circle where the Captain’s body lay. He dropped to his knees beside Tiadaria and took her hand in his. Then he wept.

The morning outside her room was cold and gray. It matched the numbness that she felt. Tiadaria had stayed in the palace after the battle, given a fine room with a deep, plush bed. The curtains were velvet and royal purple. The rugs were expertly woven and soft on her bare feet. It was a spectacularly beautiful room and it would have made her very happy if she had been able to experience it.

Instead, she stood at the window and peered out from the open maw of the cavern, across the city. The battlefield was hidden from view by a hundred different intervening buildings, but she could feel it. That was where the Captain had died, where she had held him for the last time. Where her heart had broken. It had only been two days ago, but it felt like two years. They would put his body in the ground today, the last remnant of the legacy of the great man he had been.

There was a light rapping at the door, but she ignored it. She didn’t want to see anyone and she certainly didn’t want to talk to anyone. It seemed like all she had left to offer anyone who came calling were tears and bitterness. There was another rap at the door. Still she didn’t move. She stood there, standing, staring, her eyes straining as if she could see through the buildings to the spot where he had died.

Tiadaria heard the door open and whirled; ready to demand that she be left alone. It was Faxon who entered, his chestnut brown beard a stark contrast to his pale skin and cream-colored robes. He looked as tired and drawn as she felt. She couldn’t even muster the strength to cast him out, so instead she turned back to the window. He closed the door softly and came to stand beside her.