Born a Monster

446 346 – First Blood

One good thing about being able to run at top speed for two hours without tiring is that you can keep up with minotaurs in the dusty wake raised by hundreds of charging horsemen.

You’re already imagining the downside, aren’t you? How breathing that heavily in such a cloud of dust coats the inside of the lungs, causing a level of coughing that borders on vomiting?

I had evolutions from high-flying birds, to survive without as much oxygen. The others managed, somehow. Maybe the dust wasn’t as bad at their height?

And there was a LOT of running; some idiot had taught the lizard riders about Fabian tactics. Instead of wheeling into a suicidal charge, they rode to the top of a nearby hill, and then wheeled to face the knights. The knights, in turn, split off both left and right, but stayed well away from the base of the hill.

“Straight up!” Uma urged us. “We go straight up that trail until they HAVE to charge us.”

As fate would have it, I was trying to cough-puke my lungs clean when that started. “It has begun!” I shouted, realizing there was no way to get to ...

No, I was thinking too limited. If I could jump high enough, I could jump between trees instead of around... no, it still wasn’t enough. There was no way to Uma before the charge reached us.

What the hell? I had steel mail, metal shield, gloves of three-layered cow leather, and boots... crap. My boots were in my inventory. Still, I took up a place where two bushes almost met, and waited.

They rode in three ranks, each rank like a speartip or arrowhead pointed at our line. The lizards were smarter than horses, weaving to avoid trees, and then weaving back seemingly without their riders even adjusting their knees.

.....

I asked,

One of them began lolling a wet tongue.

one of the larger ones sent.

the lizards sent to each other.

And, of course, they turned so that one of them would pass to my left, another to my right.

What else was I to do? I blocked the lance to my left, jumped over the lance to my right, and tried to land on the back of that first mount to pass me.

Yeah, I know; they were too fast for that, and I barely had time to spin, to angle the shield so that one of the second rank stomped my shield instead of directly on me.

I don’t know how I knew to put Heart’s Protector back into inventory and grip my shield with both hands. But this I did, and thus kept hold of it as a lance struck, hard enough to pierce the steel and drive me back into a tree trunk.

Remember how I lamented that most armors don’t protect from Impact damage? I took more damage from that tree than I would have from the rest of the battle, if there had been any such.

The riders bunched at the base of the hill, formed up, sounded a horn, and took off toward the north-west.

“Where are they GOING?” I wondered aloud.

“Who cares?” one of the young males shouted at me. “Get over here and HEAL her!”

Another thing the bards get wrong; magical healing is not always fast, nor reliable, nor complete. Generally speaking, choose one of those (or safety for the healer), and just realize the other two can’t be achieved.

It was not Uma, who had come through with a few wounds and a Kathani corpse for her efforts. No, this was a dark haired, dark eyed maiden, lithe and agile, once full of life. It’s amazing how two lance hits on opposite sides of the chest can make such a difference.

“Pull those damn poles out of her!” one of the males thronging around her directed.

“Do no such thing!” I shouted. “Without proper healing, you’ll just leave a hole directly through her lungs.”

I pulled a healing potion from my inventory. It wasn’t my best ever, taking up a pitcher of volume. Easily downed by a minotaur, less so by me. “Has she been eating well? This will kill her if she hasn’t.”

She responded by grabbing the pitcher from me, and doing a credible job of getting most of the potion down her throat, even as she coughed and heaved.

I called the miko light to my hands, and the energies of death into my senses.

She was not in a good way, her life force fading quickly under the twin [Bleeding] conditions.

“Roll her onto her side.” I directed,” pulling out packets of sage leaves. “Pack these into the bloodiest part of the wounds.”

People react differently to pain; when the first of the leaves touched her flesh, she lunged forward, biting me in the face and tearing away my right cheek.

“Gyaa!” I yelled. “SOMEONE MUZZLE HER!”

“But... but for men to touch a woman in such a manner...”

And then, Uma was there, holding her mouth shut in a steel trap made of her own gauntlets. “Can you save her, or should I just snap her neck? Hah, that has her squirming.”

“Less drama and more restraint. Someone light a torch!”

“Trch?” she asked, and struggled all the harder.

“Burn the wounds closed as soon as the lances are pulled free.” I said.

“She’ll be scarred for life!” the youth shouted into my face.

“She’ll live!” I countered. “You useless... IGNITION.”

“NOO!” he screamed, taking the torch from my hands. “I am her brother. This task is MINE. Mine and mine alone. Not. Yours.”

“Fine.” I said, snapping the head off the first lance. “Stand ready. In three. Two.”

She struggled, but had the good sense to pass out at the first kiss of the torch.

“Will she live?” he asked, when the final burning was complete.

Uma struck him across the face, whipping his head halfway toward his shoulder. “That is MY useless slave you are insulting, and by extension me.”

“I’m...”

She loomed over him.

“I’m never apologizing to the likes of you! Come on, strike me again, it won’t change ANYTHING!”

Her expression softened. “Idiot. What is your name?”

“I am Gyrfalcon, son of Laeticia Maxima Drommond, once thrown out for being a sickly child. I name myself survivor, to stand here now while so many others have fallen in glorious battle.”

“Watch your words, Gyrfalcon, else you will end your life husband-slave to Uma the Mighty.”

“Uma the Thug.” he snapped. He didn’t know Uma as I did, such little as I did know.

I reached out, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “Gyrfalcon, what is your sister’s name?”

“Hansa.” he said. “She is named Hansa, after a massive river from the other world.”

“Well then get a grip, and help me apply these poultices to Hansa’s burns.”

“It smells like cheap perfume.” he complained.

“Lavender, rose, onion, and garlic.” I said. “When combined with the sage already applied, it should help her to recover more fully.”

She moaned as the bandages were applied. “This is torture for her!” Gyrfalcon complained.

Uma snorted. “Where are the knights? The enemy is escaping, damn you all!” Well, she could see the knights, their horses seeming to exalt in their exercise.

“After them, you louts!” she screamed.

“It’s no good!” A knight in white with a black tree on his shield told her. “Horses are faster, yes, but those lizards have the endurance. With the lead they have, we can only tire ourselves out.”

“Are you cowards?”

He sat up straight in his saddle, thrust back his faceplate so she could see his face. “Are you or are you not your brother? If you mean to tire us out to no effect, fine, but don’t be complaining when our horses have no energy later.”

She squinted at him. “Your horses seem to have plenty of energy to me.”

“The flush of battle, Lady Uma. It will fade soon, and the horses will need to be toweled off and watered.”

She snorted. “These horses of yours are more pampered than I am.”

“Get us within bowshot of a formation of archers, unshielded by enemy spearmen, and we’ll gladly show you why.” he countered.

“I shall hold you to that promise.” she said. “Our enemy has shown us how they think. We journey from one hilltop to the next, skipping only those with lairs on or in them.”

The knight lowered his visor again. “How are we to possibly know which have lairs?”

Uma eyed me. “We have scouts.”

You bards, who would insist that cavalry charge directly at their targets, get yourselves the war trained mount of your choice. TRY IT. Run me down directly, when I have armor and shield. I dare you to try. I won’t even need a weapon.

Properly, that is the Hanse river, the basis of the Hanseatic League of Merchant Guilds. The rest of the stories conflict too much to tell what the truth of the matter was.

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