Paul Kidd - The Council of Blades

"Lorenzo!"

Miliana surged forward in panic as rapier and short sword clashed. She stumbled to a halt just short of the fight, helpless to intervene as the blades howled and slithered in a blur of rage.

Moving in a nearly senseless panic, Lorenzo somehow held his own, punching his sword hilt across Svarezi's helm to drive him back away. Tekoriikii tried to thrash forward and bring his beak into the fight-exposing himself to Svarezi's blade, Miliana wrenched at the chassis of the Sun Cannon, trying to rip free a strip of wood to make a quarterstaff or club.

Tekoriikii snapped his beak; Svarezi swore, whirled, and whipped back his weapon to finish off the bird once and for all-baring his arm to a desperate, sobbing lunge from Lorenzo's sword.

The stiff rapier pierced through velvet, mail, and silk to stab clean through the inner elbow of Svarezi's weapon arm. With a roar of rage, Svarezi spun aside. Blood sheeted from his forearm, spilling to the ground. His sword hung from nerveless fingers as he staggered blindly out of range.

Lorenzo moved forward; Svarezi spun, blurred out his free hand to snatch Miliana by the hair, and dragged her shrieking to his side.

"Enough! Throw the blade away or the she-witch dies!"

Svarezi wrenched his captive tight against his chest. Even so sorely wounded, he could have snapped Miliana's neck like a stick. The girl froze as he wound tight his grip, fear bulging out her eyes.

"Stop!" Lorenzo held out his sword, his face draining white. He came a step closer to Svarezi, his eyes only on Miliana's face. "Don't hurt her! I'll drop it. Just leave the girl alone."

Miliana tried to speak, but Svarezi's hand ripped at her hair, choking her with agony. Lorenzo threw his sword far away across the road, then held out his empty hands.

"It's gone! Now let the girl go free!"

Beside the Sun Cannon, the warlord gave a derisive laugh.

Miliana managed to croak out a few words in fear.

"He-he'll ransom me! He's rich!"

Lorenzo blinked, stared at Miliana, then swiftly reached a hand to his belt.

"Here! Here… yes, I'll ransom her! See? A thousand ducats in gems!"

He tugged, threw his purse, and Svarezi laughed and loosened his grip on the girl. She fell to the ground as Svarezi snatched the heavy purse out of the air.

"A thousand ducats' prize and a princess for my bride! A fitting crown for my victory."

A wisp of smoke disappeared up the fuse that led into Lorenzo's patent anti-theft purse. Miliana lunged wildly aside, diving through the grass. The prince spared a quick glance at the heavy purse and opened his mouth to give a terrified cry.

The blast shuddered the entire hillside. Lying flat on his belly behind a score of rocks, Lorenzo felt debris shower all around. He lifted his head and wildly searched for Miliana as the smoke blew in wisps along the road.

"Miliana? Miliana!"

"I'm over here!" Legs clad in frilly petticoats waggled as the girl struggled up from the dirt. "Is he gone?"

"Um… best not to ask."

Struggling erect, Miliana knelt on the grass and instantly began searching the rubble with her fingertips. Wiping sweat and scorch marks from his brow, Lorenzo came over to kneel in puzzlement at her side.

"What on Toril are you doing?"

"My spectacles are gone! This war is costing me a fortune in ground glass!" Blind, scorched, and annoyed, the girl gave up on her search. "Is Tekoriikii alright?"

"The hippogriff's beating out the fire."

"Oh, good." Blinking like a newborn kitten, Miliana faced in the general direction of the din of battle. "Can you see the fight? Who's winning?"

"We're pushing his battle lines back. But Svarezi's reserves are still massed down at the bottom of the road." The young inventor stood up on tiptoes to stare ashen-faced downhill. "There must be ten thousand men down there!"

"Damn." The princess blundered over to the Sun Cannon and leaned against its hull. "We have to do something!"

Miliana froze; blinking her rather pretty eyes, she began wrinkling her nose like a rabbit and exploring the air.

"Um-Lorenzo?"

"Yes?"

"Should I be able to smell cherries?"

The two humans both turned to look up at the gigantic chemical vats looming overhead. Shaatra the hippogriff and Tekoriikii both caught the sudden aura of fear and joined them in staring at the weapon in alarm.

A hissing cloud of pink steam escaped from the armored pipes and valves, and Lorenzo instinctively backed away.

"The explosion must have cracked the vats…"

"You mean those chemicals are going to mix?"

"Ummm…"

Miliana peered through a cloud of cherry-scented death.

"How big a bang will the damned thing make?"

"Um, well, a bench model the size of your hat blew up my old room at your father's palace."

"That's what I thought." The new, improved model weighed ten thousand times more. "Can we stop it from going off?"

"Um… no!" Lorenzo frenziedly sought the best route for escape. "Miliana-we have to run!"

"The hippogriff can't move!" Miliana pulled chocks from under the Sun Cannon's wheels. "Come on!"

"Miliana!"

"She saved Tekoriikii! We can't let her get blown to H'Catha!" Miliana planted her skinny shoulder blades against the back of the giant armored wagon. "Push! Come on, it'll roll downhill if we can get it moving. Tekoriikii-give a hand!"

The bird floundered up from where he had been contemplating his newly ruined tail. Ineffectually leaping and hopping up into the air, he tried to throw his weight behind the wagon. The injured hippogriff looked on in wonder as all three friends ignored the growing hiss of chemicals and tried to shove the gun downhill.

"It's too heavy!" Lorenzo searched about for a lever or a pulley. "I can't get it to move!"

Miliana stepped back, rolled up her sleeves, and sang out her last and only spell; the feather fall effect rippled the Sun Cannon with a gleaming purple skin, temporarily reducing the weapon's mass to nil.

"Now shove!"

A mighty heave sent the wagon on its way. Fifty feet long and three man-heights high, the juggernaut rolled down onto the road, picked up speed, and careened down toward the valley floor. The rearmost unit of Svarezi infantry looked back in alarm, then screamed as one as the wagon heeled slowly over and crashed down onto its side.

The entire valley floor lit with an explosion of violet light. Svarezi's reserve regiments disintegrated; others flung themselves down before a hail of debris. The Lomatran militia dove for cover, then crept slowly out to watch a cloud of reeking purple smoke fade and disappear.

Svarezi's battle lines were a crushed, molten wilderness of broken men and steel.

On the ridgeline high above, Lorenzo numbly helped Tekoriikii to his feet, then took a pace back to stare, dumbfounded, at the view.

"It does make rather a bad bang. Next time maybe I should use less cherries."

"What next time?" Miliana blinked into an out-of-focus world. "Did we win yet?"

"That just about does it." Lorenzo took another pace to his rear. "Oh! I've found your spectacles…"

"Really?" The girl eagerly reached out her hands. "Are they all right?"

"Um… not really. I've just trod on them."

Shaking her head, Miliana linked her arm through Lorenzo's and gazed off across the valley with a sigh.

Left to his own devices, Tekoriikii took a quick look left and right, then scampered off downhill and fluttered up into the reeking purple clouds.

"Are we too late?"

"No, no, no, sir knight! I would say you are fortuitously just in time." Spirelli the snail clung stickily to the back of a rather annoyed horse, peering his eyestalks out beneath his helmet brim. "I believe the time has come to charge and claim the day!"

Beside the snail, Orlando Toporello stood in his stirrups and signaled to his men. A thousand Sumbrian refugees, welcomed onto the battlefield by a slimy, charismatic snail, slammed down their lances and spurred into the charge. They swept past cheering Lomatran infantry-past dangling nets of snarling hippogriffs and streams filled with joyous nixies-and out into the plains to surround Svarezi's last remaining infantry.