M. Mathias - Through the Wildwood

“Done,” Darbon finally nodded before sprinting away.

“Are you ready, Trevin?” Vanx asked.

“I am, but you don’t even have a weapon. You gonna throw rocks like Darby?”

Vanx reached to his belt and chuckled. His dagger was gone. Matty. He remembered her taking it earlier. He just shrugged and heeled their mount toward the battle.

“Do you want my bow or my sword?” asked Trevin.

“Give me the bow. Hook that quiver to my belt,” Vanx called back over his shoulder, pausing every few words to make sure he didn’t take a low-hanging limb to the head. “I saw what you did against the ogres before. Keep your blade. If you could do that much damage again, those men might just have a chance.”

The old haulkatten carried them right out of the Wildwood. One minute they were in the thick foliage, the next they were on rolling grassy turf. A score or more of king’s men, some in full armor, some in studded leather uniforms, were battling as many ogres, a few of them nearly twice as large as those they’d faced in the forest. A wild-haired young man in glittering mail was doing severe damage to the opposition by charging his silver destrier at them then withdrawing quickly. The way the other soldiers formed around him when he backed out of the enemy showed Vanx that he was the one in charge. Vanx figured him more brave than smart.

“Get around behind them, Vanx,” Trevin yelled. The din of battle was intense. Steel rang on wood and iron. One of the ogres was using a huge bone club to pummel a swordsman who’d lost his horse. Vanx let the old katten have its head for a heartbeat while he loosed at the ogre. The arrow struck deeply into its chest. The severely wounded soldier took advantage of the creature’s surprise and ran his sword straight up into its guts.

As they flanked the horde of foul-smelling, green-fleshed hulks, Trevin climbed to one side of the saddle and made ready to leap into the fray. “At least we made it through the Wildwood,” he jested.

“Like Darby said, if we die today, it’s still better than ending up a dragon turd,” Vanx replied, but Trevin was already rolling to his feet and cleaving the lower portion of leg from one of the huge ogres. Again, Vanx wished he was on the younger haulkatten. Were he so mounted he would have charged right into the horde. As it was, he didn’t dare get too close for fear of being launched from a bucking, twisting katten whose only desire was to flee.

He saw a mound and directed the haulkatten that way. Twisting in his saddle, he snatched the last quiver of arrows from the pack frame, untied the cords holding the other gear in place, then pulled all the rigging off of the animal as he jumped to the ground and let it run away. Using the slightly elevated position and his keen sight, he wounded or put down as many of the ogres as his supply of arrows would allow. It took only moments to empty the two quivers. After the last arrow was loosed he surveyed the battle to see how else he could help.

The unhelmeted young commander and a knot of his men were being pressed back against the Wildwood’s tree line. The men were afraid to seek its cover, and rightfully so. Vanx saw movement behind them. There was no telling how many of the beasts were lurking in the dark tangle of trees. There wasn’t much Vanx could do for them, other than harass the ogres from the rear.

Elsewhere, Trevin and a half-dozen kingdom swordsmen had their hands full with the two ogres. They looked like ten-year-old boys fighting full-grown green-skinned men. They also looked to be gaining the advantage.

Trevin was rolling and diving and darting about the legs of one of them. He made a slash, nearly hamstringing the thing, but it kicked out and spun away in time to save itself. Another swordsman heeled his horse in quickly and jabbed his blade in the ogre’s buttocks before it could get hold of Trevin. The other ogre palmed a destrier’s head and twisted. The horse screamed and bucked and went down on its side, pinning its rider’s leg. The terrified horse thrashed, crushing the man’s chest armor. The ogre kicked its head so hard that it went still.

Vanx didn’t watch any longer. He raced across the battlefield, stopping only to snatch up a sword from a fallen man. The archers of the rescue party, some of them anyway, were regrouping at a distance. Vanx heard someone yell, “Looooose!” and then the thrum of bow strings. A tight group of arrows arced out and sank into the crowd of ogres pinning the blond-haired commander’s group.

Loud bellows of rage and pain erupted from the horde. The second volley of arrows came in as Vanx spitted one of the ogres from behind. He yanked the sword free from the creature’s spine with the aid of his booted foot, and then went after another. His world became a wild, spinning blur of green-colored flesh and hot, dark blood. Snarling faces snapped at him as he dodged filthy-clawed fingers. The sweaty beasts smelled like rotting meat and fought ferociously.

Vanx’s movements became mechanical and instinctual, yet fluid enough to keep from getting walloped. Club-like arms and jagged, raking claws were everywhere. He was grazed across the cheek by an arrow, of all things, but he didn’t let that slow his devastatingly fluid assault. At one point an ogre managed to grab a fistful of his hair. He spun away with his blade, taking the creature’s hand off at the elbow as he went. Untangling the stubborn fingers caused him to lose the rhythm of his battle trance long enough to get clawed across the chest and knocked from his feet. When he landed he saw the wild-haired commander and was shocked. His face was alarmingly familiar.

The hair, the nose, and the perfectly symmetrical eyes were virtually identical to someone he’d seen recently. He didn’t have time to ponder who, though. He had to get to his feet before he was trampled. On the way back up, he was kicked in the ribs. His lungs were emptied of air, but that didn’t stop him from spinning a complete circle with his blade held out to buy himself some breathing room. Around him the violence raged on.

Gasping for breath, Vanx hacked into the neck of an ogre and spun away. He saw, more than felt, the effects of the thick-bone club that shattered to pieces on his skull. A burst of light, a shade of lavender not so different from the wizard’s protective sphere, engulfed his vision. Emerald and sapphire stars exploded as he tumbled to the ground again. He was dazed to near unconsciousness. He thought he heard the young blond warrior scream, but he couldn’t be sure. Then his eyes focused long enough to see two of the king’s men fleeing in terror and the twisted yellow toenails of the dirty green foot that violently met his body and sent him all the way into blackness.

Trevin finally severed the big ogre’s tendon and sent it to its knees. After that, the mounted swordsman came in and stabbed the creature full of holes. Finally, it fell over and lay still. More ogres erupted out of the forest, some right into the group pressed against the trees, some well clear of the jumble of butchered bodies.

Trevin didn’t register it at the time, for he was trying to put down the other of the over-sized beasts, but later he would reflect that the expressions on those ugly, pug-nosed faces that were just arriving were looks of fear, not rage. The ogre with which he was engaged kept him from seeing why they would be afraid. It was intent on pounding him into the dirt, or tearing him in half, as it had just done to another man.

When the new wave of ogres came, the bowmen lost their clear shot of what was left of the horde pressing the king’s men at the forest edge. That didn’t stop them from loosing at individual targets, though, and then there was a moment where everything stopped just long enough to draw a breath.