The General's Legacy

Prologue: The Old General (part 2)

Zeivite muttered something, cupping his hands, then reached up to grasp the mail-covered forearm as Garon hauled him onto the warhorse.

The mage spoke again, moving his hands around the shape of the horse, the general and himself. All three of them vanished. Only hoofprints on the ground and the sound of the horse's breathing betrayed their presence.

Garon quickly clamped his legs to the saddle and the horse launched into a gallop up the middle of the field through a gap between soldier formations. They crossed the zone where friend and foe mixed in a chaos of metal and blood. Garon watched the clawed beasts ripping limbs and heads from bodies.

Rippers would be the right name for them, he thought grimly.

The only sounds they made came from weapons and armour being wrenched aside, and bones torn from muscle.

This is insane, Garon thought as he rode on, forcing the thought and sounds of screaming from his mind. The Vale Horse beneath him was bred for strength and stamina, not speed. He waited, still invisible, with forced patience for the ground to the back of the enemy army to pass. Few soldiers noticed the sound of beating hooves and divots of turf kicked up by the invisible horse.

***

In the middle of the field, Quain swept his sword from its scabbard; a yellow jewel in the hilt lit up like the opening of a lizard's eye. He saw the beasts that would become known as Rippers cut into the front ranks of his men. Not trusting even a warhorse to face up to them, he ran as fast as his armour would allow towards the nearest. He watched the beast move as he approached, swinging his sword to warm his arm muscles. One man was dealt a deadly blow and his head, severed by a huge claw, span through the air at Quain. He raised his shield to deflect the head and slowed, waiting for an opening. There were too many soldiers trying to engage the beast with swords that lacked the reach to be effective.

'Make way!' Quain cried.

Men scattered to the sides and Quain advanced between clawed arms, stabbed the beast's narrow chest where its heart and lungs should be. A claw grabbed him and threw him to the ground. Struggling to rise quickly while encased in armour, Quain knelt beneath the thrashing claws and raised his blade to ward off the blows, but he was too slow in turning its edge to make a cut. Another claw grabbed his shield and pulled; Quain used the force to rise to his feet before releasing the shield and retreating a few steps, breathing hard.

The Ripper, finding no body attached to the shield, dropped it and advanced. The Silver Warrior took his sword in both hands, stepped forward and slashed. A claw tumbled into the enemy ranks. Quain turned like clockwork with the Ripper's movement, taking the second approaching claw onto his blade, cutting fingers. Reversing the swing, he crouched and cut into its knee cap.

Oblivious to its wounds, the lame beast limped after him. He stepped back, assessing the increasingly wretched thing the way a woodsman considers a troublesome tree stump. Timing a two-handed swing to avoid a slashing claw, he cut off the beast's good leg. The Ripper fell and Quain beheaded it in two more strokes. Vacant black eyes stared at Dendra Castle as five more of the beasts scythed their way through soldiers, moving ever forward. The Rippers picked the dying, biting into them as they struggled for their last breath and then tossed them aside.

The catapults released, flinging six roasted pigs over the Rippers' heads into the enemy ranks.

Quain looked up from the Ripper he had dismembered. He was isolated in a no man's land between the armies, created by the sweep of huge claws that now lay still. The enemy soldiers ahead of him formed up and advanced. One on one, he was unmatched by anyone other than, perhaps arguably (and argued it was around many tavern tables), the general himself. But the weight of the enemy numbers would crush him.