Ascendant (50 page)

Koren and Arteman
wheeled their horses around as one, to see Dartenon on her knees, an arrow
protruding from her upper right leg. A group of enemy archers were crouched in
the shadow of the barn. Koren opened his mouth to shout for the woman to get
back on her horse, when another arrow hit the young soldier square in the chest.
Dartenon's head snapped back, and she fell to the ground without a sound.

Koren was
halfway out of his saddle when he felt Arteman's hand on the collar of his
vest. "No! You can't help her!" The man shouted.

"But, I,
we have to-"

Arteman pulled
Koren close so they were face to face. "This is not a game, it's war! If
you don't want to die like Dartenon, ride for the bridge."

Koren had
never seen anyone die in battle before, his mind was awhirl of confusion while
he let Arteman lead the way toward the bridge. Tears blurred Koren's vision as
Thunderbolt carried him toward safety. Enemy troops were now riding out of the
village in an attempt to cut off their escape, it was going to be close. Some
instinct caused Koren to duck, just before an arrow whizzed past where his head
had been. He was turning to see where the arrow had come from, when there was a
sound like a sharp axe hitting soft wood, and Arteman gasped. An arrow was
sticking out of the old soldier's back! Koren leaned over to stop Arteman was
falling off his horse, but the horses moved apart, and he was too late. Arteman
fell forward, rolling out of the saddle face first, and fell to the ground. One
of his horse's hooves kicked him in the head by accident as the soldier fell,
throwing his helmet off. The horse stumbled and fell, rolling over then
scrambling up and running off in fright.

Koren hopped
down to the ground, horrified the old soldier may already be dead. Arteman lay
on his side, and groaned when Koren reached him, his eyes fluttering, unfocused.
The arrow was not in deep, it had hit a thick strap on the leather vest, Koren
was able to quickly wiggle it out, as the man grunted in pain. Pulling the
ripped vest open, Koren could see white bone in the wound, the tip must have
hit a rib. Painful, but lucky for Arteman, and the arrowhead looked clean,
Koren licked it and spit out, it didn't taste like poison. The old soldier was
not so lucky about the wound on his head. The horse's hoof had caught him in
the right temple, there was a deep gash in the shape of a horseshoe, and a lot
of blood. When Koren tried to help him up, Arteman only groaned, could not keep
his legs under him. The man's eyes were closed, his head lolled from side to
side. There was no way Koren could get the man onto Thunderbolt's back by
himself. Something, a sound, a movement of air, caused Koren to spin around.
Before he realized what he was doing, his short sword was in his hand, and the
blade flicked out to knock aside an arrow that had been aimed at Arteman.

"How the
hell did you-" Exclaimed a passing soldier, astonished as Koren stood up,
and this time, his sword blade neatly sliced the next arrow's shaft in two,
with the tip diving into the ground.

"Help
me!" Koren pleaded. "I can't get Arteman onto my horse."

"Damned
fool you are, and damned fool I am too, but-" The man waved to another
soldier, and together the two men quickly picked up Arteman and flopped him
face down on Thunderbolt's back, then they were off.

Jamming his
sword back into its sheath, Koren climbed up into the saddle, and this time,
dug his heels into the horse's side and loosed the reins. Thunderbolt
moved
,
surging forward so fast that Koren almost fell off backwards, the horse's
hooves digging clods of dirt out of the ground and flinging them backwards in
his headlong flight. In less than twenty strides, the great horse had passed
the horses of the two soldiers who stopped to help Koren, their mouths gaping
open as Thunderbolt, nostrils flaring, passed them as if they were standing
still. Passed them while carrying two people on his back. If Koren had time, he
would have fairly burst with pride about his horse, but all he could think of
then was to get Arteman to the bridge.

And with a
clatter of hooves on wood, they were on the bridge. Some instinct caused Koren
to hop off, and hand Thunderbolt's reins to a passing rider. "Take Arteman
across the bridge, he's hurt badly!" He shouted, and the man took hold of
the reins and guided Thunderbolt across the bridge at a trot.

Koren ran over
to the royal army men guarding the bridge entrance, who were now seven
soldiers, including three archers. Leaving his sword in its sheath, Koren asked
breathlessly "What can I do? Can I give you arrows while you shoot?"

One of the
archers nodded, and indicated his quiver of arrows on the ground. But another
archer held up his right wrist, which lay at an unnatural angle to his arm, it
was sprained badly. "Not much use I am with this bow." The man said
with disgust, and spat on the ground. "Can you use a bow?"

Before Koren
could answer, another soldier snapped "Don't waste your bow on a boy! I'll
take the bow myself before-"

"Shut
your mouth, Teegan." Answered another of the archers. "Koren here is
the wizard's boy, and if you haven't seen his archery lessons with the weapons
master, I have. Wizard skill he has with a bow, never misses, and he can shoot
an arrow further than any of us. Hedris, give him your bow."

Koren felt
much better with a bow in his hand. Calmer. With purpose. The injured soldier
called Hedris handed him an arrow, and Koren sighted along it, then realized he
was insulting a royal archer, who of course would have checked his own arrows.
"Sorry."

Hedris shook
his head side to side. "Don't be, I'd do the same. Always check weapons
you're not familiar with. If you have the time. I think our time is about
up." He pointed toward the village. The surviving royal army soldiers,
with Captain Raddick and two of his lieutenants at the rear, were past the
village and riding at full speed toward the bridge, pursued by the enemy. To
the west, more of the enemy were riding to cut them off, and the enemy was
ahead. "Hit the lead riders. Koren, you take the right." The head
archer ordered, and the two royal army archers, and Koren, nocked arrows to
strings, and drew back. The enemy rider Koren sighted on would be colliding
with the royal army men in a few seconds, and the shot was at extreme range.
Koren steadied his aim, stilled his breathing, and-

-hesitated.

The enemy
soldier's face was scrunched up in an angry grimace, and his spear was held
forward, reaching out toward the royal army.

Koren had
never killed anyone, never fired an arrow, or swung a sword, in anger. Seeing
the enemy's face, the face of a real person, he hesitated. The two other
archers let their arrows fly, and either missed, or their arrows fell short.

"Koren."
Hedris hissed in a loud whisper. "You've probably never killed a man, I
know it's not an easy thing to do. Shoot. Shoot now, or more of our soldiers
die."

Koren blinked,
feeling his eyelids sting from the salt of dried tears, tears that had welled
up in his eyes when Dartenon died. Thinking of that brave woman, Koren aimed
slightly in front of the enemy rider, pulled the bowstring back as far as it
would go, and waited a couple heartbeats. Paedris may have given him magical
fighting powers with the sword, but Koren had always been deadly accurate with
a bow, as far back as he could remember, hunting rabbits and deer around his
parent's farm. He always
knew
just when to let an arrow fly. When he
sensed the moment was right, he released the bowstring. "Another." He
said to Hedris, while selecting another target, not needing to watch the arrow.
The arrow would hit its target.

Koren never
missed.

The enemy
rider leveled his spear at a royal army soldier, and opened his mouth to let
out a battle cry. Koren's first arrow impacted right in the roof of his mouth,
cutting off his scream.

After that
first shot, the battle was a blur for Koren. Take an arrow from Hedris, fit it
to the bowstring, select a target, draw back the bowstring, wait for the right
moment, and release. Again, and again, and again and again. Koren was having an
effect on the battle, after five of their fellows died from arrows fired at
such distance, other enemy riders veered off, trying to keep at longer range.
The royal army took the opportunity to break through, and then Koren and the
two other archers had to be careful, for their own men were blocking their
shots. They switched their focus to the enemy soldiers riding in from the west,
charging the bridge directly. Koren had time only to fire two more arrows, then
Raddick's horse pounded onto the bridge, and the Captain shouted for his men to
retreat. Koren followed the soldiers, running fast as he could, turning to fire
another arrow. One royal army soldier was hit by an enemy arrow, and fell over
the side of the bridge into the rushing water below. When Koren reached the far
side, completely out of breath, he ducked aside to clear a path for the archers
who had taken up position across the end of the bridge, blocking the enemy's
path. Two archers were using flints to set fire to the oil-soaked rags they had
wrapped around their arrows, as Koren and the last of the royal army raced
safely past, they let the flaming arrows fly, aiming at the middle of the
bridge. The arrows hit, and started small fires in the dry old timbers of the
bridge deck. But enemy soldiers were charging fast across the bridge, led by a
very large man on a massive war horse. The man was entirely clad in black
armor, as was the front of his horse. As Koren watched, two royal army archers
shot at the enemy, but their arrows glanced off his armor. The war horse did
not shy away from the flames, but leaped over, and suddenly loomed before them.
The enemy soldier raised a blood-stained battle axe, and even the most
battle-hardened royal army soldier felt fear.

Without
asking, or much thought, Koren pulled an arrow from another archer's quiver,
nocked it, aimed and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow took the enemy
soldier right in the one gap in his armor: his throat. A cheer went up from the
men around Koren as the huge man crashed to the bridge deck, and his panicked
horse wheeled around, riderless, to leap back through the flames.

Two, three,
five more flaming arrows hit the bridge, and it was ablaze, effectively
blocking the enemy's path. The enemy sent arrows through the flames, and
shouted insults, but Raddick had gotten most of his force safely out of the
ambush. The battle was over, for the moment. He left a guard at the end of the
now flaming bridge, and gathered his remaining lieutenants to discuss what to
do next. Koren ran over and removed his helmet. "Captain, sir, what about
Paedris? Lord Salva is in danger!"

"What
the-?" Captain Raddick was startled to see Koren, startled and then angry.
"What are you doing here, boy?" Raddick had lost track of Koren after
the enemy emerged from the treeline, the last he had seen of the wizard's
servant was of the boy riding back along the army column. When the wizard
jumped the fence and rode away across the fields, Raddick had assumed Koren
would have followed. "You didn't follow the wizard?"

"No, sir,
I-"

"Your
place is with your master, boy!" Raddick angrily waved his hand for
silence when Koren tried to explain. Part of the anger was because Raddick had
considered Koren to be an honorable person; he knew that the wizard and most of
Raddick's soldiers liked Koren. Now Koren had disappointed him severely.
"Lord Salva used his magical powers to give you lightning speed with that sword,
so you could protect him, and you run away at the first sign of trouble? No, I
don't want to hear excuses! Go see if you can help with the wounded, and stay
out of my sight, you coward." The Captain dismissed Koren with a disgusted
look, and turned to bark orders at his lieutenants.

"But, but
I-" Koren stammered, totally surprised by the Captain's reaction.
"Sir-" The words died in his mouth, as he realized only three people
in the world knew he wasn't a coward, that Paedris had ordered Koren away.
Dartenon lay dead, on a field across the river. Arteman was with the wounded,
unconscious and uncertain to survive the day. And Paedris himself? Paedris was
on his own, pursued by three enemy wizards. On the other side of the river,
where there were hundreds of enemy soldiers.

"Come
with me." Said an older soldier Koren didn't know, who had overheard
Raddick's disgusted outburst. The man's clothes were spattered with blood, some
of it was his own, from a ragged cut on his forearm, and one side of his beard
was crusted with blood. He looked no worse than most of the royal army men.
"Name's Porten, and you're Koren, right?"

"I'm not,
I'm not a-" Koren self-consciously wiped at the drops of blood on this own
face, blood that belonged to Arteman. Koren himself had not gotten even a
scratch during the battle.

"Best you
stay away from the Captain for a while, and do what he says. Can you help with
the wounded?" The man asked gently. He knew this was the young man's first
battle, and the old soldier remembered his own first battle, how shocked,
scared and disoriented he had been, all those years ago.

Koren nodded.
He was in shock, but not so much from the battle, which was still only a blur,
as if it hadn't really happened. His shock was from Captain Raddick calling him
a coward. "I'm
not
a coward!" Coward? In his first battle, he
had fought hard, and killed enemy soldiers, without any real combat training!
If Raddick hadn't been so busy, he would have seen Koren shooting arrows, seen
that it was Koren who stopped that last, huge enemy soldier. "I've helped
Paedris when he's healed people, but I don't know about potions or spells or
anything like that."