AN: Beta-read by
Carbohydratos,
Did I?,
Gaia,
Linedoffice,
Zephyrosis,
Mizu, and
Misty Raven-chan.
Chapter 74: Knights and Princesses
I spent the year-and-a-bit following my Knightly 'graduation' hunting monsters and the rare criminal—sometimes under the supervision of a more experienced Knight, but increasingly often leading a handful of guards on my own recognizance. I assume I was kept away from the most dangerous tasks simply because I was 'less expendable' than anyone else, but it kept me busy and feeling good; we were doing important work to keep people safe, and I was—in the privacy of my own mind—having the sorts of 'adventures' I'd hoped for from the
Generic Fantasy RPG. Along the way, I continued to hone my naginata skills (with more than a little help from Zero) and even remembered to flex my
Examine perk a bit.
Given that I was now frequently out traveling the countryside for weeks at a time, I was no longer able to meet with Homura and Zeke except during the few days each month I was back in the City. To my surprise, Homura and Zeke warmed up to each other quickly in my absence; or rather, Homura warmed up to Zeke and Zeke relaxed in general. He still rarely left the house, but that was less due to shyness and more due to the unwelcome amount of attention he was getting from girls—and the occasional boy. There was finally someone on the 'chain
less comfortable with the idea of dating that I was.
I made a note not to tell Zero that. Zeke didn't need to deal with her particular brand of 'help', and the thought that she might succeed was worrying in its own way.
———X==X==X———
The metaphorical training wheels came off a little less than two years after my official Knighting, when I was among those selected for a very special mission: the capture of the fugitive horsemen who'd stabbed me nearly to death what felt like a lifetime ago. Balio and Sunder had surfaced trying to cross the North Checkpoint out of the wastes; one of the guards had recognized them from the countless 'Wanted' posters and asked them to wait while he prepared to arrest them, but the brothers smelled a rat and slipped away before they were surrounded.
In a world that was less… I'll be polite and call it 'narratively minded'… I probably wouldn't be
allowed on the mission, nor would Rupert: it was too personal. Of course, JRPG tropes (or just the classic trope of the main characters doing everything) remained in full effect, and so I was tasked with bringing the people responsible for my kidnapping and later near-lethal stabbing to justice, with Captain Rupert in command… officially. The chain of command was a bit of a mess; I may no longer be the
Crown Princess, but I still outranked Rupert considerably in the political arena despite being his subordinate in the military. So I
could overrule him by royal decree… probably.
I wasn't interested in finding out which way the wind would blow if we went head to head on a decision, and Rupert was clearly the more experienced leader anyway. I'd follow his lead unless I had a damn good reason to do otherwise, as—in addition to the general clusterfuck it would cause—I'd likely make an enemy of the man no matter how justified my actions.
At any rate, Rupert was leading six Knights—the most I'd seen assigned to a single task since I'd begun training—and two dozen soldiers, all eager to distinguish themselves in the presence of the Princess. Last—and possibly least—were a dozen more 'helpers', squires and wagon drivers who would keep everything moving smoothly. We were in for a long haul; just getting to the checkpoint with such a large party would take a week or more, to say nothing of how long we'd spent searching the Wastes for a pair of fugitives who had already proven adept at running to ground.
I was… pretty sure it would be enough. Still, I had the unsettling feeling nagging at me that I was once more being led into the 'plot'—and this time, it was a plot that had diverged well and far away from any foreknowledge I might have. Given how well I'd done
with foreknowledge of the early plot, I think a bit of nervousness was entirely justified.
———X==X==X———
I found Rei sitting by a fire at the edge of the camp on the first day out of the capital—he
was officially a Knight, and knew his way around the Wastes better than most. Seeing him there sent a nasty twinge of guilt through my chest at how much I'd disconnected from everyone over the years—aside from a few brief sparring sessions, we'd barely spoken since I'd started my training.
No time like the present to fix that, I told myself.
"It must be different, working with so many people," I said as I walked up.
He shrugged and added another log to the fire. "Sure is," he said. "Kinda reminds me of old times."
I smiled as I sat down across from him. "Traveling to Wyndia?"
Rei grinned. "Hah, yeah… we go way back, don't we?" His grin faltered, and he added, "Almost as far back as Ryu and Teepo."
"I'm sorry. They were good people."
"We weren't," he said. "Not 'til you came around. We were bandits. Thieves."
"By circumstance," I countered, leaning over to point at his chest. "Not by heart."
He
chuffed.
"There's always hope," I said, looking up at the stars overhead. "Nothing's impossible."
"Death's always final, though."
"I was stabbed through the heart. It doesn't get much deader than that."
Rei shook his head, ponytail waving back and forth. He didn't argue, but he clearly didn't have any hope of seeing his brothers again, and I wasn't going to change that.
"Tell me about them?" I asked. "Stories I wouldn't have heard? Teepo spoke about himself at length, but I believe he omitted a lot, and fabricated more."
"You heard about how we killed the Nue up in the mountain?"
I chuckled. "Twenty times, at least."
"Did you hear why we were up there in the first place?"
Cass knew the story, but
Lina didn't. "To kill it?"
He snorted. "Well, yeah… but it's not like a bunch of pick-pockets just decided to go monster hunting one day. We got caught. Big burly woodsman had been hassling us all winter… trying to put a stop to our thieving. We got the bright idea to break into
his house."
"He caught you in his own house?"
"Yeah. Wasn't even a fight. He had all three of us tied up outside, and I thought we were done for… we'd be locked up forever, at best." His tail flicked back and forth behind him as he stared into the fire. "He had a different idea. He wanted to teach us the meaning of
honest work, getting paid for helping people rather than taking what's theirs. So he sent me up to kill the Nue while Teepo and Rei chopped firewood to pay for what we'd stolen.
"They finished their job and caught up to me before I even found the thing." He chuckled quietly. "They were worried about leaving me on my own."
"That's sweet," I said. When he didn't continue, I prompted, "So the three of you killed the Nue?"
"Eventually," he said, prodding the fire with another chunk of wood. "Our first taste of heroism. A bitter taste, considering…"
He poked at the fire rather than continue the thought.
"And you stopped stealing after that?" I prompted.
That got Rei to laugh outright. "'Course we did. You showed up!" We shared a smile, but his good humor faded quickly. "Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if you hadn't," he said softly. "Or if we'd sent you on your way, instead of helping you."
"That's only natural," I said. His eyes flicked from the fire up to my face, then back to the fire. "It doesn't help, does it? The wondering."
"No." He dropped the log he'd been using as a poker on the fire, then grabbed another. "We were heroes… we lived like lords for months…" The fire snapped and crackled as he went back to prodding at it. "But I wonder… what if. What if we hadn't? We could have lived in the woods, hungry and poor… but we'd be together."
Until something else tore you apart, I thought.
Sorry, Rei; those two were never going to have simple lives. The call knows where you live.
———X==X==X———
It was about a week-and-a-half journey from Wyndia to the North Checkpoint on foot if you were traveling light; with our wagon train, it took three. I continued sitting with Rei in the evenings, sometimes talking, sometimes just keeping company. He seemed a little more lively than he had that first night, but for all I knew he was putting on a brave face for me.
In the mornings, I talked strategy with Captain Rupert as the guardsmen broke the camp. "Why would they reappear
now?" I asked one morning about halfway to the checkpoint, the day after we'd crossed the mountain range collectively known as Mount Levitt. "It's been years."
"Exactly." He paused to make sure he could see his face clearly reflected in the breastplate he was polishing. "They probably thought the heat had died down," he continued, putting away the polish and rag and summoning a squire to help him don the armor. "If they've been in the Wastes for the last few years, they wouldn't know their likeness is still on every street corner in the Kingdom."
"They tried to murder a member of the royal family," I said. "Surely they realize that's not going to be forgotten?"
"Criminals aren't criminals because they're smart," he said.
We crossed the Checkpoint without issue, our Writ of Passage ensuring that there would be no challenges. Then we were out of Wyndia and into the Wastes. The Wastes were… well, 'barren' is as good a word as any. It wasn't even a proper desert, just a vast expanse of sparse, rocky shrub-land, bracketed by mountains to the north and south, the Dauna river to the east, and an inland sea to the west. The perimeter was a bit more lively, with enough hardy grasses and stubborn weeds to sustain an itinerant population of cattle, and even the occasional scraggly copse of trees that I thought might be fruit-bearing, but the center was exactly what you'd expect from a place called the "Great Wastes". Dirt, rocks, prickly little shrubs, and more dirt.
Rei had made several journeys back to the Wastes; the first, to give thanks to the Elder for his help, then simply to visit. He was acting as our guide, and was able to lead us more or less directly to the tribe we were looking for. As luck would have it, the turning seasons put them only a few days' travel to the west.
The day of our arrival had a festival air; it was tradition to bring gifts when returning to the tribe from a journey, and with several dozen people arriving… well, there was a reason beyond simple supplies that we'd hauled three wagons all the way from Wyndia. Neither Deidre or Rei had mentioned that the nomad tribes weren't human—serves me right for assuming. In fact, they were all horsemen, the same race as the people we were hunting; I had to squash my gut reaction as the camp came into view, because apparently I was a racist now. "The only horsemen I'd ever met stabbed me nearly to death" could only excuse so much.
After the festivities had quieted down, Rei introduced us to his contact among the tribe's Elders. He was probably the oldest horseman I would ever meet, his hair entirely white, his… fur?… thinning, and his back so stooped with age his eyes were even with mine—did I mention that horsemen were huge? Balio and Sunder had towered over everyone, but it turned out they were
short for horsemen.
Said Elder was also strong, judging by Rei's reaction to his heartfelt embrace. "Rei! My friend! You've brought a tribe of your own to my camp! What occasion brings you all here?"
"Air," Rei wheezed.
The Elder set the badly ruffled Woren down and turned to Rupert and I. "Please, introduce us!"
"Ahem…" Rei motioned to me and the captain. "Bard, may I present Lina, of Wyndia, and her guard, Rupert."
"Well met!" Bard cried, patting Rupert hard enough to stagger him before turning a critical eye to me. "Lina, Lina, I have heard that name before…" he leaned in close, until we were practically nose to nose. "Ah! You are the princess Rei and his friend wished to heal! In the flesh! I had heard of your recovery, but I did not think you would visit yourself!" He hugged me; I was inordinately proud that I weathered his affectionate greeting better than the others, for all it was my previous RPG perks cheating for me. "A sturdy one, too!" he said as he put me down. "But I do not imagine this is a social visit!"
"I'm afraid not, Elder Bard," I said. "The assassins disappeared years ago… until last month, when they tried to cross the Dauna checkpoint from the Wastes back into Wyndia. They were spotted and fled… but we believe that they are still in the Wastes." Referring to the pair as 'assassins' was a deliberate choice; it was a word that would elicit no sympathy whatsoever from the tribe. The two may not have
set out to kill me, but they certainly tried, and it wasn't hard to spin 'murder' into 'assassination' when talking about someone in the royal family.
From the expression that crossed Bard's face, my word choice had the desired effect. "Murderers." He turned and spat to make his opinion clear. "I wish you success with your hunt, but the Wastes are vast. How do you plan to find them?"
"We had hoped you could help. Perhaps you've seen them?" I motioned to Rupert, who unrolled a likeness of the pair, one of the countless posters that had been distributed across Wyndia during my infirmity and were, as far as I knew, still there.
Bard peered at the pictures, then shook his head, his bushy white mane swishing back and forth with the motion. "I am afraid I have seen neither of these men." He continued scowling at the pictures. "However, I do know that
something has disturbed the monsters around Mt. Orreg. Perhaps your fugitives have taken refuge there?"
"That's the place you sent us years ago, isn't it?" Rei asked.
"The same! The very same!" Bard laughed and delivered another rattling blow to Rei's shoulder. "I trust you will have no problem navigating the mountain again?"
"Not at all," Rei agreed. "Uh… the guardsmen might not be able to make it, though."
"We'll see what the trail looks like when we get there," Rupert said.
———X==X==X———
It took us another five days to arrive at Mt. Orreg, a large, jagged mountain northwest of the Syn Sea. I only had to take one look at the mountain to learn why Rei had been worried about the guardsmen; we'd be
climbing, not hiking. This world didn't have mountaineering equipment, either, so we'd be
free climbing with no ropes or anchors. If I couldn't not-quite-glide my way out of a nasty fall, I'd probably have refused outright.
I can't believe Teepo agreed to do this before he learned he could fly.
Rupert had the guards make camp not far from the base of the mountain, then had Rei, himself, and I attempt the climb. I called it a mountain, and it certainly seemed like one at the time, but to a 'mountain climber' back on Earth it wouldn't even be a footnote; the summit couldn't have been more than a few thousand feet above the base. It was
steep, though, so we'd be climbing cliff faces most of the way up. Rupert left his armor and glaive with the guards, since they would be too heavy to climb with, taking only a shortsword on his back. I had to rig a custom harness for my naginata, since just slinging it over my back would interfere with my wings, but I made do; I didn't want to get into a fight with anything less than my best.
The climb was damned hard, made harder by the lack of modern equipment and frequent vulture attacks, but we made slow but steady progress throughout the day. Unfortunately, we were still less than halfway up the mountain by nightfall, and had to climb fifty feet back down to make camp. "I see what Bard meant about the monsters," Rei said as we pitched the tent on one of the few stretches of flat ground we'd encountered. "We never had to deal with any attacks during the actual climbing."
"Only on the summit?" I asked.
"And places like this." He finished pounding the final peg into the ground and ducked into the tent. Rupert and I exchanged a glance, then he entered the tent as well, leaving first watch to me. Nothing interesting happened for the three hours I spent in vigil, and then I woke Rei up for his turn and went to sleep.
The next day we made better progress. Rei led us around the mountain and up an easier—though still difficult—cliff face, and we didn't have to backtrack to camp, since the mountain was finally beginning to level out. We might have been able to push for the summit, but Rupert wanted everyone rested in case we found ourselves in a fight. We took the same three-rotation watch, and then it was dawn, and time for the final approach.
"They're probably not on the summit itself," Rei said. "There's a cave near the top on the east side of the mountain. If anyone's camping here, they'd use that."
"We'll be ready," Rupert said. I nodded, and we set out for the final hundred feet of climbing, followed by a hike up a barely-navigable trail. Nothing bothered us, which only made me more anxious. The narrative conventions of the world had long since become clear; there would be a boss fight ahead.
Geographical features shouldn't be able to surprise people, but the cave snuck up on me; it wasn't visible until Rei called us to a stop right on top of it. We each readied our weapons, and then stepped into the gloom. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and if our enemies had been smart, they would have struck then, but nothing happened, and we were free to creep forward. The cave wasn't entirely closed at the top; a jagged crack let in just enough light to see by, and directed rainwater into a pool at the center of the cavern. A line of smooth stepping-stones led to a dais at the center of the pool, though it was empty. I leaned over to speak to Rei. "Is that where you found the thing you had to bring back?"
"Yeah," he said. "Now, quietly." He led us around the edge of the pool, towards a patch of deeper shadows at the back of the cavern. Rupert wasn't exactly skilled in 'quiet', even though he'd been forced to leave his armor at the base of the mountain, so it wasn't terribly surprising that we weren't able to sneak up on the cave's inhabitant. The inhabitant in question, however,
was a surprise; a raggedy, unshaven youth with a chipped sword and a wild mane of messy purple hair. His first stroke nearly took Rei's head off. He didn't take a second, the blade dropping from nerveless fingers.
"Rei?" he whispered.
Rei went ramrod straight at the sound of his name. "Teepo!? What are you—"
"Why are you—"
Neither finished their question as they embraced, holding each other tightly. Rei's shoulders were shaking, and Teepo was barely holding back his own tears. I was getting misty-eyed, myself, and pointedly ignored Rupert's questioning look.
"I thought you were dead," Rei said.
"I'm sorry," Teepo said. "I… couldn't come back to Wyndia. Not after…" he paused, then gently pushed Rei away. "You shouldn't be here. Why are you here?"
"We were looking for Balio and Sunder," Rei said. "They're in the Wastes somewhere. Bard thought… since the monsters around here were going crazy…"
Teepo shook his head. "No… that's just me…"
Rei looked him up and down, then peered past him at what must have been his 'home', such as it was. It wasn't much to look at; a bundle of straw that served as a bed, a few ragged pieces of cloth that could have been intended as a tent, and an old weather-beaten iron pot were the sum total of his amenities.
"How did you end up all the way out here?" Rupert asked.
"I…" Teepo hesitated, then decided to lie… badly. "I don't remember?"
Rupert and I exchanged a glance. His was curious, and more than a little cautious. I knew full well what had happened.
Rei reached out and put a hand on Teepo's shoulder. "That doesn't matter. You can come back with us…"
"No!" Teepo said quickly. "I can't. I'm… I'm too dangerous."
Rupert's next glance was
concerned.
"I don't believe that," I said, pushing past Rupert.
"Lina!" Teepo yelled. "I… you… you're alive!"
"Thanks to you," I said. "Rei told me you were the one who found the magic to heal me."
"You…" He wiped his eyes with one hand. "I'm so glad you're all right… but… you shouldn't be near me. No one should."
"Come on, Teepo," Rei said. "We can work out the… whatever's going on. Right?" He stepped forward to rest a hand on Teepo's shoulder. "I can't just leave you here. Ryu would never forgive me."
"Ryu…" Teepo wiped his eyes again. "Is he alive, too?"
"You don't know?"
"No." Teepo shook his head, hair flapping. "I don't… I don't know. But… you should stay away from him, Rei. From both of us. We're dangerous."
I looked over the ragged camp again and shook my head.
"I don't believe that, Teepo," I said. "You deserve better than this. Come with us. Please."
Teepo couldn't resist, and he followed us out and down the mountain. I felt a little guilty for playing him like this, but not as guilty as I'd feel leaving him alone on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
Climbing down was harder than going up, and I was soar-ly tempted to just fling myself clear of the cliffs and glide all the way down, but I had a sneaking suspicion Teepo would bolt if I wasn't there to remind him of why he'd agreed to come in the first place.
Going down may have been harder, but it was also faster, so we ended up camping on the same ridge we'd used the first night. Nothing happened during my watch; I woke Rei and took his place in the tent without incident.
———X==X==X———
Something clamped over my nose and mouth, and I jolted awake to see Rupert leaning over me with a finger to his lips. I nodded, and grabbed my naginata from the floor beside me while he did the same to Rei and Teepo. I didn't need an explanation; I could hear the same thing he had. Someone was making their way up the mountain.
The sky had only just begun to lighten as we filed out of the tent and took position at the center of the small plateau. As curious as I was, I couldn't help but imagine someone grabbing me by the ankle and throwing me off the cliff Talion-style for daring to look over the edge. I had to resist the urge to start channeling magic into the naginata as well; it wasn't exactly a light source, but power glowed enough that it would light me up like a bullseye.
After a minute of nerve-wracking waiting, a hand appeared, followed by an entire arm. A head followed, belonging to one of the guardsmen we'd left at the base of the mountain. He saw us waiting for him and yelled, "Captain! We've been attacked! They—IEEEEEEEEEEE!" He disappeared from view with a scream.
"Hahahaha! Idiot!" a familiar voice yelled. "Shouldn't have stopped climbing!" Sunder vaulted over the cliff easily, then paused when he saw us waiting for him. "Oh."
"Oh?" Balio asked, arriving a second later. "Oh."
"Oh," I repeated. "I've been waiting a long time for this." I hadn't, really; I'd honestly forgotten their existence entirely until Rupert had told me we'd be hunting them. It seemed like the sort of thing I should say, though.
Rather than being intimidated, the pair were just confused. Sunder was the one to ask, "Uh… who are you?"
Did they seriously just fucking
Tuesday me? "Who… who am
I?" I asked. "I'm Princess Lina! You know… the person you stabbed through the chest?!"
"No you're not," Balio said. "We killed her."
"Bro," Sunder hissed. "Do you think she's a ghost?"
"Don't be stupid," Balio snapped. "What would her ghost be doing
here?"
"Haunting us, obviously!"
"Ghosts haunt
places, not
people!"
Well, that explained the McNeil Mansion nicely. Had we bulldozed that place yet?
"Maybe she's a vampire, then?" Sunder said.
"What? No. That's stupid. You don't turn dead people into vampires. You turn them into zombies."
"Zombies can't talk, though."
Balio had to think for a bit after that. "A revenant, maybe?"
"Aren't they, you know, skeletons?"
"The ones we saw, sure, but maybe not all of them."
"She might be a zombie ghost," Sunder suggested.
"You can't just mash two undead together like that!"
"Then explain the vampire revenants!"
"We agreed we were never going to mention that again!"
"
You said we'd never mention it again.
I didn't agree to anything!"
I shared a look with the other three.
Is this real life? Well, arguably it was a JRPG, but still. There are
limits.
"Should we say something?" Rei whispered. I shrugged; as much as I wanted to get this over with, the trainwreck was just too captivating to interrupt.
"Well, if you did what I told you to do," Balio yelled, "maybe we wouldn't have been exiled for the last five years!"
"Stabbing the princess was your idea!"
"Letting the hostages go was yours!"
"We wouldn't have needed to let them go if you hadn't decided to let the twerps compete in the Contest!"
"That plan worked perfectly!"
"Until Garr betrayed us!"
"Why is that my fault?"
"You're the one who plans things! That makes it your fault when they don't work!"
"Well, why don't
you ever plan things?"
"Planning is hard!"
"Of course it is, you idiot! That's why I make the plans!"
"Don't call me an idiot in front of the zombie ghost, idiot!"
The two horsemen turned to look at us like deer in headlights, having suddenly remembered what set off the argument in the first place.
"Well, then…" Balio said, "I guess we should deal with them, first."
"Deal with us?" Rupert repeated, drawing his sword. "You should have run while you had the chance."
"Don't make me laugh," the horseman said. "You're the ones who should have run! Not that you had anywhere to go… it doesn't matter. We'll kill you and finally prove to
Mikba that we're worth the trouble we're in!"
"Bro," Sunder piped up, "do you think it's time for…
that?"
"Oh, yes." Balio threw back his head and laughed. "It looks like the time has come to show them our true power, my brother."
Oh, boy, here we go. Their transformation-slash-fusion sequence was blessed brief, barely giving me time to cast a few protective spells on the party. That was only
slightly cheating by the standards of genre conventions, as far as I was concerned.
The massive fusion form—and I mean
massive: even hunched over like a wrestler, the thing stood twelve feet tall and was about that wide—struck a strange sentai-esque pose, green light erupting out of the ground around them. "Stallion Metamorphosis!" they yelled. "No one has seen us in this form and lived!!"
Well, at least there's only one of them to worry about now.
———X==X==X———
The first thing I learned about this boss fight was that a small strip of land high on a mountain in the pre-dawn twilight was a terrible, terrible place and time to fight it. Stallion was large enough that they could lunge across the arena in an instant, which they promptly demonstrated. Rupert dodged the haymaker and slashed his sword at their wrist as it passed, while Rei rolled between their legs and slashed at their ankles and I struck their back. All three attacks bounced harmlessly off their hide, and Rei took a hoof to the stomach that nearly knocked him off the ledge.
They still had their back to me, so I took a moment to cast a thunderbolt, followed by a lance of ice longer than I was tall. All the lightning did was get their attention; Stallion had just enough time to turn around before the ice spell hit them directly in the face… to no effect. Just to rub in how completely ineffective I was, they promptly turned their back on me again. A thunderbolt flew from their palm, too fast for Rupert for dodge—and splashed harmlessly against the shield spell I'd put on him before the fight kicked off. Damaging spells weren't doing anyone any good this fight.
Fine. I have the right tool for this job. Of all the places to learn combat skills,
this Skill was something I'd picked up from the palace chef during my time as Cassandra—a way to cut
just so, slicing through scales and bone (and defense) like a hot knife through butter. The edge of my naginata developed an unnatural gleam as I leapt into the air and unleashed a Mighty Chop, cutting a deep gash across Stallion's back that oozed strange gray blood. It certainly got their attention; the giant horseman spun around and swung a fist at me while I was still in midair. I barely had time to interpose my polearm in a clumsy block before the overhead slam spiked me into the dirt.
Rei made good use of the distraction by starting a colossus climb, crawling up Stallion's legs and sticking his knives into the cut I'd formed. The horseman solved that problem by rolling across the ground, flattening Rei and nearly catching Rupert in the flailing as well. Thankfully, the Captain kept his head enough to thrust his blade into their face as they rose, drawing their attention while I helped Rei up with a hand and a healing spell.
We recovered not a moment too soon, because Rupert was quickly running out of room to dodge Stallion's attacks. Rei went low while I went high; his knife found purchase in the back of the horseman's knee, while I relied on my ability to penetrate defenses to spear my blade through Stallion's thigh, aiming for an artery around my eye level. Once again, they spun around in a rage—but now my naginata went with them, and I with it. Before I had a chance to even consider releasing my grip, the motion had flung me around to collide with Rupert, who wasn't expecting the extra hazard. We went down in a heap.
From my position on the ground, I could see Stallion reach down and pluck the knife out of their joint before flinging it off the cliff. "Oh, come on!" Rei yelled. "I had that knife for years!" The horseman stopped to taunt him over the loss of his blade, which gave Rupert and I of us a moment to untangle ourselves.
"Are you okay, Princess?" Rupert asked as he helped me to my feet.
"Fine," I said. The armor Max had given me had really come through; I was pretty sure I wasn't even bruised from that collision, and had kept a hold of my weapon to boot.
Rupert wasn't so lucky;
he only had a leather tunic for protection rather than his normal plate mail, and I wasn't
that light. He didn't waste his breath thanking me for the healing spell I applied to the battering I'd just given him. "Think you can get his neck with that?" he asked, nodding to the blood marring my naginata's blade.
"We'd need to drag 'em to the ground," I pointed out.
Rupert grunted and went back to work. Without the dexterity to exploit the few vulnerable spots on Stallion's hide or the Skills to ignore their absurd damage resistance, he wasn't much more than a distraction. He was a
good distraction—his next attack transitioned into a leaping slash that nearly took one of Stallion's eyes—but it wasn't getting us any closer to victory. Nothing we'd done thus far was. The wounds we'd dealt hadn't even inconvenienced the giant fusion monster; the blood dripping from the cuts was far too little to make a difference, and the strike to the knee hadn't slowed them down at all.
As little as we'd done, doing more was proving a challenge. Stallion knew Rei could hurt them now, and were responding accordingly. Rei's next attempt to strike at their knee nearly got him stomped into paste, and the opportunistic slash at their ankles as he dodged bounced off harmlessly. I decided he had the right idea, though; with another activation of the Might Cut skill, I cut deep into the back of the horseman's calf, aiming to sever the Achilles Tendon.
Stallion's reaction was immediate and intense; they dropped everything to focus as hard as possible on putting me in the dirt. If I hadn't had the evasion perk, I was sure I would have been flattened; as it was, I barely managed to slip between the frenzied strikes, operating on instinct as I dodged blows too quickly for my conscious mind to keep up with, backing away in a long arc that kept the cliff to my side rather than my back. Their reaction made it clear that I'd
hurt them, but the wound didn't impair them any more than Rei's stab in the knee had. Finally, a stab from Rupert into the gash on their leg earned me a bit of space, and I promptly cast a
Flash in their eyes and put as much distance between us as I could get on the plateau.
That distance meant I had about a second's warning when they turned their attention back to me. It was the opportunity I needed; I ran forward to meet them, planting the butt of my naginata in the dirt and pole-vaulting towards their neck—only to be carelessly slapped out of the air with a contemptuous backhand. I landed hard on my side and rolled painfully over my wings before I got my feet back under me barely in time to avoid skidding right off the side of the mountain.
It was only as I was flapping like a pigeon trying to keep my balance, hissing in pain all the while, that I remembered we had a fourth member of our group. Teepo was cowering against the cliff face, sitting on the ground and clutching his arms across his stomach like he was in pain. At least he was out of the way and beneath notice; in fact, the only reason I'd noticed him was that I could clearly see him through the gap in Stallion's legs. The horseman was focused on Rei again, throwing bolts of lightning that the nimble Woren dodged one after another. Judging from the added blood, Rei'd managed to get his remaining knife into the bastards' other knee, for all the good it did.
I took a moment to magically heal what was likely a broken wing before twisting around to examine the limb, which also showed me just how close I'd come to leaving the mountain entirely. I'd stopped mere inches from the edge… but it wasn't just a hazard for us. "Give up, you idiots!" I yelled at Stallion. "You couldn't kill a girl who had her arms tied behind her back! How long are you going to waste our time?" The look on their face when they turned towards my taunting gave me a moment of hope; that seething rage and frustration were the perfect ingredients for a self-destructive charge off the mountain.
Unfortunately, they decided to keep casting spells. "You asked for it!" they yelled. "Combination Power! Utmost Attack!" They struck another sentai pose and then
exploded into a wave of rainbow energy that filled my vision. Too magical to block, too wide to dodge, no space to run—and then it was too late. The spell picked me up and threw me off the cliff like a ragdoll.
If I hadn't been wearing armor boasting some of the most powerful defensive enchantments available, it probably would have killed me outright. It would have at least knocked me out, which would have accomplished the same thing. Instead, it merely felt like being beaten half to death by a tornado. The 'picked me up' bit actually proved to my advantage, since it gave me plenty of time for the flight instincts I hadn't realized I had to stabilize my tumble before gravity dashed me against the rocks below. I still couldn't exactly 'glide', but with sufficient flapping, I could slow my fall enough to for the camp at the base of the mountain, coming down for a painful but
survivable landing amongst a pile of dead and dying men.
The encampment was a charnel house; most of the fallen lay within a few feet of their burnt and broken tents, blood soaking into the dry soil. It wasn't hard to imagine how the fight had gone: the horsemen racing through the camp, setting fires and cutting down men as they emerged from their tents drowsy and confused. To my shame, I froze—I might claim I was still disoriented from being Hyper Beamed off a cliff, but it was more likely the shock of seeing nearly two dozen people I'd spent the last two weeks marching, eating, and camping alongside lying butchered in the mud.
I don't know how long I might have stood there if a pained groan hadn't snapped me out of it and pushed me back into action. The Knights had fallen within a few feet of each other at one end of the camp not far from where I'd landed, though whether they'd been the first line of defense or the last stand I could only guess. A quick check showed that their armor and skill had kept them in better shape than the others: all three were still alive, though only one was conscious—the one I'd heard. I took a moment to move further into the camp until I was only barely in range of the three Knights, then reached into my pocket and triggered my Moon Tear. A warm green glow rushed outwards about a half-dozen paces before vanishing as quickly as it had come, and the Knight who'd already been awake sat up with another long groan, helmet turning this way and that in a daze.
Unfortunately for him, I didn't have time to let him regain his wits the long way. "What's your name, Knight?" I barked.
The tone of command cut straight through his confusion. "Cooper, Ma'am!" he replied crisply, saluting with the hand he wasn't using to stay upright.
"Knight Cooper! Grab a medic's bag and start searching for survivors! I've used magic to heal everyone nearby who was still alive, but there may be others elsewhere in the camp!" Suiting actions to words, I pulled Cooper to his feet and sent him one direction while I headed in the other.
We'd only made it a couple steps when an earthquake shook the ground—or rather, an
impact. Stallion had made a crater in the barren field beside the mountain, but he was still alive, groaning as he tried to rise back to his feet. I guessed Rei and Rupert had managed to bait him off the cliff after all, for all the good it did.
Or not.
Stallion was still on one knee when a massive
something slammed into him, a gleaming black shadow of claws and violence tearing massive rents in the beastman's near-invulnerable hide. A maw sought their neck; they managed to get their arm up fast enough that the teeth snapped shut on that, instead, but the thing responded by letting loose a massive plume of fire without even letting go, bathing Stallion's upper body in roaring flames whose blazing orange light hid as much as they revealed in brilliant glare and pitch-black shadows. Seconds later, the rush of hot air crossed the fifty feet between the battle and the camp, blowing shredded scraps of tent around while the thick, choking stench of burning hair hit us like a physical blow. Then the fire stopped, and I was left blinking spots out of my eyes as I tried to figure out if Stallion was still alive.
They were. The moment the dragon released its grip, they put their fists together and delivered a haymaker strong enough to lift their opponent into the air and bring it crashing down ten feet away. It didn't move for a moment—stunned—but recovered and bull-rushed Stallion before they could finish climbing out of the crater. Another fire attack blinded me to the action, and by the time my vision recovered, they'd gone up the other side of the crater, the two monsters rolling over each other as they wrestled for position. More fire. The dragon was on top, using the leverage to shove Stallion's arms aside, only to get donkey-kicked off before it could capitalize on the opening. Fire. Stallion had hold of the dragon's head with both hands as he slammed it into the dirt one, twice—Fire. And then the dragon's teeth found their mark, and hot gray blood fountained into the air. The dragon didn't seem to notice when its enemy ceased struggling; it continued to rip at the corpse hard enough to send bits of burning gore a half-dozen paces in every direction.
"God help us," Cooper murmured.
Dragons, it seemed, had really good hearing. The dragon's head snapped towards Cooper; faster than I could track, it abandoned the corpse and cut the gap from fifty feet to fifteen, head rearing back to bathe him and the still-unconscious Knights in searing flames.
"No!"
The dragon paused, breath attack a mere squeak as I interposed myself between it and the other Knights. A stupid move, in hindsight, but one that paid off when the fire in its throat dimmed and faded.
It regarded me curiously, green eyes gleaming. It had just been a
shape during its fight with Stallion, the intermittent bursts of fire ruining my night vision; now, with the first light of dawn filtering across the horizon, I had a chance to actually
see it. It was a true Western-fantasy dragon: two arms, two legs, and two wings, rather than a wyvern's four limbs. Its hide was closer to alligator skin than the scales I'd expected; a deep purple covered the majority of its body, while its belly and the underside of its neck were bright orange, the color of the flames it had used in its fight. The membranes of its wings were a lighter purple—violet rather than indigo—and reminiscent of gossamer insect wings more than leathery bat wings, while its claws were yellow and the size of Rei's knives. Lastly, its head was adorned by a pair of elegant gray horns sweeping back along its scalp.
It—he—was
beautiful.
"Princess!" Cooper yelled. "Run!"
Running might have been smart, but this was Teepo; he'd never accept his dragon-self if I ran from him. "I'll be fine!" I called back. "You need to check for survivors!"
"But—"
"Go!"
He went.
The dragon had watched our exchange patiently, though his eyes kept returning to my naginata. I was thankful I hadn't raised it out of instinct when I'd first leapt in front of him, and set it down before I stepped forward. This wasn't a wild animal, no matter how he might look; this was Teepo, the boy who'd leapt into battle to protect me from Balio and Sunder years ago during our hike to Wyndia, and who had just done it again. I wasn't… okay, I was a
little scared, but I wasn't going to let that show.
"Hey," I called, "You don't want to hurt me, right?"
He
crooned, a thumming sound that I felt in my chest, and lowered his head down until his chin lay on the ground between his feet.
Holy hell, his head alone probably weighs as much as I do!
"Let's all just… calm down," I continued, speaking as slowly and calmly as I could manage. I was still walking forward, one hand extended—I think I intended to stroke his snout, but I'm not sure. I ended up with a much less tentative touch; he moved his head forward to greet me with a catlike headbutt that nearly knocked me flat, and I had to half-grab, half-hug his face and flap my wings to avoid being bowled over.
"Whoa! Careful!" I yelped, then let out a laugh that sounded shrill and panicky even to my ears. "You're a friendly one, aren't you?" I was trying to reassure myself that I wasn't about to lose a limb to the teeth the size of my hand. This was fine. Everything was
fine.
And… it was. In response to my question, the dragon… no,
Teepo nodded, a motion that lifted my feet off the ground for a moment because I was still wrapped around his face.
"Whoops! Sorry!" I let out a slightly less panicked giggle as I let go and stepped back. "I hope that wasn't too uncomfortable for you."
Teepo snorted—sending a puff of smoke out of each nostril—then grabbed me in a bear hug and carried me into the sky, screaming.
———X==X==X———
