A little fiction to start the week

I like writing but get bored easily, so my best pieces are very short. Here's a a quick shot from our quest into the lands north and east of Thrace where we eventually met Marcus.

They all stood for one long, silent moment in the sudden quiet. Livingood's conjured fog cut off all noise of the enemy gathering beyond it, even muffling the sounds of the dying centaurs and direwolves around them.

Ginnison was the first to speak. "We need someone who can get above this fog and tell us what the rest of the centaurs are doing."

"I can do that" Oberon stepped up to the tree. With a small gesture and a few words spoken under his breath a branch came bending down, gently scooping him up and lifting him into the grey-white blankness above their heads. Ginnison had already turned away.

"Who's hurt?"

"Bedewyr took a good one over here." Ligia called, supporting the young knight as he got painfully to his feet. Blood stained his armor down one thigh and clotted around the edges of a ragged gash in the mail over his hip. Through the gash could be seen a hurried but tightly bound pad of cloth. The rough bandage matched the fabric of Ligia's tunic.

"I can fight, if someone will help me onto my horse." He growled, tight lipped and pale.

Bedewyr, though, would say much the same thing on his deathbed. Ginnison's eyes flicked briefly to Ligia, who nodded almost imperceptibly, before nodding himself to the younger man. He turned again to scan the rest of the party. "Anyone else?"

"Nothing a bath wouldn't fix," grumbled Sarann, wiping ineffectually at the gore covering the front of her jerkin. "Nasty, bloody things!" She spat, giving the dead direwolf at her feet a kick.

"Then mount up. If we've managed to smash a hole in their eastern flank we'll make a run for it. Bybars, Tamarind, Bedewyr, Darvin and I will be the first rank; other fighters spread out along the rear and flanks, the rest in the center. Stay together but don't get bunched up—remember their bows."

Rena and Livingood had already run to bring up the horses. Rori took the reins of his weedy, vicious-looking pony, scowling at the line of pack animals the druid led. "They'll slow us down."

"Hardly. Between the direwolves and the smell of blood these poor sods are ready to outrun us all. And we can't reach a full gallop in these rocks anyway. We'll hang on to them as long as we can and if nothing else maybe cutting them loose at the right moment will gain us a few minutes."

Rori snorted. "It must be dire straits, boy, for that to be your plan."

Livingood patted the shaggy neck of the pony beside him, his eyes sad. "Dire indeed."

Careen and Tangwystal stood on either side of Roselle's horse hastily buckling the riding straps of the blind girl’s custom-wrought saddle. "I hope Grisha's keeping his head down out there." Careen muttered, "I don't want to have to go fetch him out of some centaur dungeon."

"No, it's his turn to come for us, I think--but I lost track after Transylvania." Tang gave the straps one last tug and looked up at Roselle. "This is going to be a bad ride. Are you sure you don't want to get up behind me?"

Roselle shook her head. She was distracted, as though she was listening for something in the fog. "Grisha is well." She said in her quiet voice. "But there are centaurs coming."

"Let them come!" Careen grinned and swung up onto her own horse. "We're leaving anyway."

At that moment there was a scrambling commotion in the tree Oberon had disappeared into. He came plunging back into sight, wild-eyed and ashen. "Ginnison! More centaurs, coming up from the east! At least forty of them, plus wolves! We're surrounded again—there must be a hundred of them out there!"

For the space of one breath there was appalled silence. Then with a snap, purpose and movement returned. Maask slid a sideways glance over her horse's saddle at Rashid. "You have any friends we can invite?"

He shook his head. “Not that would get here in time."

Tangwystal rode under the tree and looked up to the branch where Oberon still perched. "No direction we could break through?" She fingered her longbow almost wistfully. He shook his head and jumped lightly to the back of her saddle. She twisted to grab him and lift him angrily back towards the branch. "You can hide yourself, I know. Get back up there!"

He clung stubbornly to the horse. "I can hide both of us--come with me!"

"Not unless you can hide all of us, Oberon. Hide now, then go home to Prydain." Her smile was as bright as ever but her eyes were hard.

Ginnison listened to this exchange, eyes narrowed in speculation, then spun to beckon sharply to Livingood and Rena. "Don't you two have transformation magic?"

Livingood shook his head. "Only for myself. I can take the shape of a bird—I wasn't planning to, under the circumstances."

"Do it!" Ginnison ordered. "We can't escape, not all of us. But we can try to get some away, to track the Centaurs wherever they take us and try a rescue later."

"You're assuming they're going to take prisoners, not kill us outright."

“We know they're under someone's orders. The fact that they're here so far east of their own lands—and running with direwolves—proves that. We'll go with the idea they'll carry survivors back to someone in authority. "

Rena quietly stepped forward. "I have a shapeshifting spell that works on others. But I only have strength for two, perhaps three at most. And I have to be near to dispel the magic or they'll stay in that form permanently."

"Right. You go then. Creelan and Ligia will be the other two…"

At that moment there was the sound of a thousand angry bees in the fog followed by a hail of centaur arrows slashing down on them. Caelwyn fell almost immediately, an arrow buried to half its length just under her shoulder blade; there were sharp cries from several others as well.

Many of the horses and pack animals screamed in pain, most began plunging and rearing, trying to bolt. "Let them go! " Ginnison roared. "Turn them loose! We can try to gather them later!" Spinning, he brought his hand down with a loud smack on his war-horse's rump. "They'll follow Clermont away! Let them go! "

The huge horse was too well trained to panic at the sounds and smell of battle, but at his knight's command he scrambled to a gallop. Once freed, the other animals followed him blindly. In seconds the fog had swallowed them.

Ligia fell to one knee in front of Tala. "Follow them. Hide." Tail lashing, The leopard roared her anger and defiance of the words and turned away. Ligia pulled the leopard back to meet her eyes. Her low voice rang with authority. "Go. Hide. Go now. Track me later." Tala's answering snarl was unhappy but no longer rebellious. The big cat stood for a moment with her head pressed hard to Ligia's chest. Ligia laid her cheek against the fur of her friend's neck. "Go, my heart." She whispered. Then with a sinuous twist Tala leapt away, a blur in the fog for an instant before disappearing from sight.

Another volley of arrows fell, then another. Rori and Morbid heaved a centaur carcass into place as a makeshift shelter for Maask and Demetrios where they knelt by Caelwyn. Suddenly Demetrios gave a start, his eyes wide, then with a sigh he toppled forward. A centaur arrow stood out from his side.

Rashid had snatched up a discarded shield and now struggled with Careen. One arm hung useless at her side, a long bloody gash marking the path of an arrow. "I will not hide with my face in the dirt like a rabbit!" She sputtered angrily.

"You will get down!" Rashid shouted back, furious. He snatched her sword away and tossed it down, then shoved her hard to the ground. "And you'll stay there, too, even if I have to sit on you!"

Suddenly there was sound like a wet branch snapping, audible even over the shouting and chaos. Ligia spun just in time to catch Creelan as he sank to his knees. Over his head she saw Coriander staring in blank horror at the mere handspan of arrow still visible in the center of her lover's back. Coriander’s face grew pale as shock gave way to anger, then rage. As Ligia watched, something alien moved behind the other woman’s eyes. Something no one had seen since the night at Stonehenge, the night when the stones bled at Coriander's wrath and the stars dimmed for a time over Briton. "Cori!" Ligia shouted, "Cori, don't! Not here, not now."

In an instant a wind sprang up overhead, swirling through the fog. Ligia lowered Creelan to the ground before pulling Coriander close. "He'll be all right, Cori!" It was a frantic, obvious lie; a desperate attempt to stop the terrible stranger in Coriander's eyes. "Come and help me, Cori! I need your help...he'll...he'll be all right!"

The woman who had been Coriander was beyond hearing.

In moments the party stood in the eerily quiet center of a whirlwind that shredded the fog, revealing the closing circle of centaurs and direwolves. Overhead, roiling black clouds had formed. Coriander, her face a deathly white mask of hate and fury, spun and flung her arms to either side. The earth buckled under her feet, and the ground heaved like storm-driven seas. Ligia was knocked away and sent flying. A wave of turf surged out in all direction and broke as it reached the first rank of the enemy. A tremendous explosion threw bodies in all directions. Gouts of flame burst from the churned ground, incinerating centaur and direwolf alike.

She stabbed the sky with a clenched fist and lightning crashed to the ground in a dozen places. Where it hit, centaurs were blasted into wet, smoldering gobbets. Blue flame began to dance from one fleeing figure to another leaving behind bodies slumped and molten like candle wax. Within moments not a single centaur or direwolf remained alive. But the howling wind did not calm.

It's over, lass!" Ginnison roared. "They're dead! It's over!"

The whirlwind increased, and began to close on the party. Androcar was pointing to the north and shouting but his words were lost in the tumult. Those who turned to look saw a black wall of rain descending on them at unbelievable speed. The tempest knocked Oberon down and sent him tumbling away until Tangwystal dove and pinned him beneath her. One by one the group were driven to their knees, then flat to the ground as they fought to hold against the tearing gale.

"This is looking bad." Tang yelled into Oberon's ear.

"And it smells bad." He answered, "almost like...” his eyes grew wide as the storm swept down on them "...blood!"

Great pelting, stinging sheets of blood poured out of the sky. In seconds they were drenched. The ground became soaked almost as quickly, low spots forming puddles and pools of gore. In the center of it all stood Coriander with Creelan lying at her feet, both of them untouched by blood or wind.

The rain pounded them into the mud; the wind scoured them and slammed them with flying debris. But it was the intense, crushing pressure of Coriander's mind that eventually ground them all into unconsciousness.