My story with a Celtic twist, so fits in nicely for St Patrick's Day :)
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ON
THE THIRD
day of employing Horin’s bridges, it changed.
The
plateau dwellers had to fight the authorities to leave their cities and towns;
they escaped slave masters, ran from raiders, coped in extreme weather
conditions, and even suffered the cavalry chasing them. All this happened while
they brimmed with both fear and hope. They had also seen and lived sorcery now.
The latter had saved them numerous times.
Mirlin
grew up accepting the talents as a natural condition, but even in the west it
was not commonplace. He, too, needed to fight the authorities to leave, and
walked across the plains in the hottest dry season in living memory. It nearly
killed him.
Thus,
everyone marching knew about hardship, wherever they originated from, and
expected the unexpected, but they had overlooked something integral.
The
authorities tested for talents long before Damin sprung the Porlese trap and therefore
discovered many latent abilities; why else continue the program of testing? Logically,
it meant those authorities, whoever they were, possessed certain talents as
theirs to command. The unfortunates caught before the march to a haven did not now
walk with the host; they remained as captives upon the plateau.
This
fundamental oversight did not occur to Mirlin until everything changed, and by then
it was too late.
On
Horin’s second bridge of the day they heard what sounded like the drone of
insects, possibly a swarm in flight. At first Mirlin thought of bees, perhaps
even locusts, but there was nothing to be seen. Eyes darted everywhere, his and
many others, only to look again at each in confusion. The wildlife inhabiting
the plains, whether mammal, reptile, avian or insect, was another unknown
factor; the approaching mass could be anything.
Except
there was nothing to be seen.
In
consternation, he halted. The Mur girl’s face captured his attention and drained
him of all hope. Siri lifted her head upward and her face lost all colour. Her
jaw hung slack and she could not move. With shivers of dread coursing through him,
Mirlin too looked up.
Blue
war shields were in the air, flying in formation, on swift approach, and atop
each curved platform perched a man, bow raised, face manic, and mouth wide as
if screaming challenge.
This
was the effort of someone controlling the talent for utter manipulation, able
to alter the normal into something extraordinary. Perhaps more than one mind
achieved it, a concerted joining of power, he could not know, but it was
obvious that someone had taken an ordinary war shield and created from it a
flying machine.
Many
flying machines.
This
was something straight out of a Glonu legend.
How
the soldiers were strong-armed into accepting the duty was anyone’s guess; men
did not fly, after all – creatures feathered and scaled did. Perhaps those
gaping mouths had more to do with fear than it did with challenge. However it came
to pass, it no longer featured, for a host of trained men was about to attack
from the heavens.
Cursing
under his breath, Mirlin flayed himself for his lack of foresight. By the
sands, not that anyone would have foreseen a situation close to it even in
imagination. This event would be difficult to recover from. Many would die this
day.
The
first arrows flew.
“Off
the path!” Damin shouted.
Fear
paralysed everyone.
“MOVE!”
Damin hollered, cupping his hands at his mouth. “Horin needs the bridge!”
Animation
returned, and men, women and children launched into the scrub, hauling animals
with them. It was a mess of limbs and gear, but it happened fast. Arrows thudded
to earth and some found flesh. Gargles swiftly became screams.
Damin
and Mirlin immediately formed a buffer over Horin when the boy kneeled, the men
locking into a forearm grip and crouching over him. Mirlin suffered the sense
of a thousand arrows smacking into his exposed back; no doubt Damin felt the
same. Siri hunkered between Forest’s legs beside them, praying to Massin’s
so-called benevolent stars.
“Quickly,
Horin,” Damin murmured.
Mirlin
marvelled at his calm.
The
rain of barbs intensified, and the shields overhead blotted the sun. They squatted
within a twilight of death with eternal doom but an arrowhead away. Gooseflesh
assailed skin and ears twitched.
“Horin,” Mirlin urged also.
The
lad shook head to toe. Fear had him. He swallowed with difficulty, eyes
flitting into every direction.
“Concentrate
on what you must do,” Damin said. “We deal with pain after, all right?”
“Do
it,” Siri added.
Horin
stared at her for a moment, and then nodded. He elevated his hand and, thank
the sands, the ‘bridge’ lifted and swiftly altered both substance and shape. It
became fluid, as heavy water.
Everything
froze in the ensuing moment. Arrows juddered to a stop in the air. Shields halted
in mid-flight and -turn. Soldiers were immobilised in various poses, while the
marchers were as living statues. The green barrier did not move either.
Frowning,
Mirlin wondered what the boy sought to achieve. Horin gazed at Damin. It
appeared only the four of them were able to move.
“The
only way to end it, Damin, is by killing all of them.”
Those
words explained the frozen state surrounding them. Horin sought permission to
do what he had to, or hoped for absolution before the act. Siri was pale, but
remained silent, her gaze moving to her brother also.
Damin
closed his eyes. His jaw worked through his inner tension. “It is us or them,
Horin. This is defence, not cold murder.”
Horin
nodded, his face oddly expressionless, the reaction of a mature man rather than
that of a mere boy, and his fingers opened to bleed tendrils of red light. Those
scarlet wisps, reminding Mirlin of blood, weaved into the pulsating jade
substance, to form a lattice within the fluidity. Abruptly Horin clenched his
hand into a fist and they flinched as sound and movement resumed with the next
heartbeat.
It
was chaos. People ran and stumbled, screamed, and groaned. Arrows caught in
mid-flight smacked down. Donkeys brayed and horses neighed. Shields in the sky
buckled briefly before correcting for the next pass.
Mirlin
read terror in many eyes. The soldiers on those shields stared at the rising
substance, and they were afraid. On the ground, silence fell as everyone gazed
up. Even the animals were now quiet.
Arrows
were nocked and loosed ever faster, but now none found target; the spreading green
and red ‘net’ absorbed every impact. The magical device lifted ever higher and
stretched wider and further, becoming almost transparent, it was that thin. It
was now a veil between the marchers and the archers on their flying blue shields.
Mirlin’s
heart threatened to escape its cage in his chest. Peripherally, for the
spectacle overhead garnered all his attention, he noticed Horin punch the air.
The
miasma exploded.
The
sonic boom accompanying it felled those on the ground. They stumbled to knees, fell
to all fours, but still all stared up, transfixed. Small pellets of sorcery
targeted the archers. Tiny missiles smacked into flesh with popping, wet sounds
that served to empty a few guts on the ground.
Siri
gagged, but held on to the contents of her stomach.
Mirlin
expected the archers to explode also, by the sands, but instead they became as
nothing in an instant. One moment a man perched atop a shield, the next he was ether.
His shield hurtled to earth, and his bow and arrow pouch joined the headlong
tumble. Within two minutes the sky was cleared, and shields, bows and arrows
littered the scrubby terrain.
Horin
unwrapped his fingers. The miasma instantly formed anew and then contracted swiftly
until a tangible green orb rushed to him, and lowered gently into his palm.
His
fingers enclosed it and he stared at it in horror. “It was inside me,” he
whispered, “and now it is free.”
Come, reader, join the great march today …
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