“Sherriff, you may throw yourself on the ground before my mother’s feet to beg her forgiveness, or you may find yourself at her feet screaming as your entrails fall out, but you will be face down at her feet in answer for those words.”
I banged my spear upon my shield as I advanced. Ajax memories were clear, you never banged your spear upon your shield unless you were calling upon your ancestors to witness the blood you shed. To clash spear on shield was a promise of blood and death, if you didn’t offer it, it would be taken. Well I was offering it.
I suppose I looked pretty funny, because the horsemen all laughed. The knight laughed loudest of all.
“What is that, the boy? You put some pig skin on and mistake yourself for a knight? Is that copper on your spear? Not even iron? You don’t look like a warrior, you look like a goblin. Ridzik, go knock the attitude out of that slave and collar him. We can leash him to the tree out front while his mother entertains us.” The Sherriff answered, holding the holy sun symbol at his chest, and laughing as if I was a joke.
One of the horsemen spurred at me, his spear held low like he was planning on impaling me, his light targe held out in front, and his horse snorting like he was going to ride right through me.
Horses are not boars. They won’t actually impale themselves. As the horse, and presumably Ridzik rode at me in a canter turning into a gallop, I took three running steps and threw my spear. The spear is heavy, and I had grown strong hunting boars, so it penetrated at the base of the neck, causing the horse to tumble, rolling over the horseman as the horse thrashed in agony. I reached down and took the spear from the horse, staying clear of its thrashing hooves. I walked past the moaning man, and letting the heavy spear butt slam down, I ended his moans with my lizard sticker end spike.
Clashing my spear to my shield twice more, I set myself to receive the next wave and called out.
“Sherriff Tyrol, coward. Stop sending other men to die, and come see how your blood looks on my little goblin spear.” I taunted him.
The Sherriff took me seriously this time, and he turned to the other four men and screamed.
“Kill the little shit. He’s only a child for Sun’s sake!” He screamed, holding his sun symbol and snarling at me.
The next two rode stirrup to stirrup as they charged down on me. They thrust their lances at me as they came and I had no choice but to take the jabs on my shield and content myself with making the horses shy away with my own thrusts. One thing fighting boar had taught me, I could not afford to get hit by a horse. I was a lot stronger than I should be, but I weighed what any teenage boy would, and could be blasted off my feet by a glancing blow of the horse. At that point, the thrusting spears would be a problem.
One more man at arms rode his horse beside the Sherriff to watch, but I couldn’t count on the two of them not joining in if I turned my back.
They passed me on the shield side, bumping me and forcing the spear out of line. I don’t think they understand that the one not riding the horse turns faster as I let the push to my shield spin me around, and I lanced my spear blade deep into the belly of the horse, which screamed and jumped sideways before collapsing. The spearman kicked himself free of the falling mount, but he tossed his spear aside to do so. He was off balance as I hit him with my shield. He outweighed me, and if he set himself, I would have bounced, but he was staggering and on his heels when I hit him, so his arms flung wide to keep from falling, and he was open as the tree I used to practice my thrust. I drove my spear into his breast, the heavy head punching through his boiled leather about a handspan deep. Deep enough to tear into his hear, and slash open one of his lungs. He fell backwards clutching the spear, but I kicked him in the belly and yanked back to keep my spear.
The last man at arms taught me something. I had become an excellent hunter, and a good spearman. I had not become a good fighter. He came at me walking his horse, and his thrusts were fast strikes upon my shield, until I made the mistake of raising it high enough I could not see him. Then he urged the horse into me, and I was knocked down. He drove his spear down into me, and I felt it bite my leather armour, and into my abs. I was so much stronger than before, and that made it worse. My abs were like more armour, and I felt the spear force itself deeper into me. The man at arms was using the horses momentum to push it deeper into me.
I ripped out my Xiphos and cut the spear shaft. It hurt, and no doubt did more damage as the spear head moved inside me. It was no more than two fingers deep, but the bruising went far deeper. I rolled under the horse and it danced away from me, causing me to take a hoof to the left thigh, but I slashed the horse with a butchers stroke and dodged its falling entrails as it bucked and fell, trapping the man at arms beneath it. I rolled to my feet, Xiphos in hand to look at the last man at arms and the Sherriff.
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The Sherriff was done letting me fight back.
“Enough. I deem you guilty of murder before the eyes of a Holy Knight. By the power given me by the church, I sentence you to death. You think any peasant with a stick is a threat to a Sherriff of the Holy Land? You dared to raise your arms against a Knight of the Holy Church, then let the Sun God’s wrath take you!” Sherriff Tyrol shouted, and extended his hands towards me, chanting in a language I didn’t know. His hands glowed with a light like the sun itself, and rays of brightness formed themselves into chains and lashed out to wrap my body. As they did, they burned into me without fire, with the pure power of the Sun God’s holy light.
I screamed, Mom screamed, the Sherriff laughed, and then my tentacle friends screamed.
In my mind I felt the power of the holy light, the judgement of the God of the Sun, the God of Law striving to unmake my flesh, to consume me as if I was so much snow to melt in the light of the sun. I heard the chorus of heavenly voices, and knew that as a human I was supposed to bow down and submit to the will of the gods. But in me was the blood of Titans. In me was the teachings of Ajax. The Titans tore the universe from the primordial darkness of chaos simply by putting their will upon the world, reaching into reality as it was and bending it to their will. There was no magic then, only primordial chaos eternally seeking to return the hated order to its previous state, and the Will to impose Order.
Magic was a thing of the gods, a thing the Titan in me did not know, could not do. I was a peasant who knew nothing of magic and its laws. I knew only this, the will of the gods was to unmake me, AND IT IS MY WILL TO EXIST.
I screamed and into my burning flesh I drove my will. This was MY flesh. Where my blood sprang from the cutting edge of holy light, there did my blood drink the light and swallow it, for the light was a construct, with no will of its own, and my body would yield to no will but my own. I screamed and imposed my will upon the light, drawing it into me, ripping it from the control of the Sherriff. I knew no magic, I knew no spells. I knew only that to walk my path I would put my will upon the world, and while I lived, I would accept no will over mine.
I looked up, ready to take up my arms again, and found it was not required.
The Sherriff hung in mid air, screaming. Tentacles of darkness yanked his limbs until he hung like a X in midair. Another tentacle, slithered under the Holy Knight’s robes and into his rear. It began to thrust, and the Sherriff to scream. I watched with vague interest as the tentacle drove deeper and deeper until the Sherriff stopped screaming. Deeper still until the tentacle pushed out his mouth, turned around and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “You should have apologized to Mom.”
Mom was covering her mouth, trying not to puke as my tentacle friends raped the Sherriff to death for the crime of planning to do the same to her. Justice is ugly, and my tentacle friends do ugly.
The last man at arms screamed. “You are one of those Dark Magicians, one of those damned Dread Empire shadow knights! You are a demon worshipper!” Riding at a gallop, he ran away.
My tentacle friends waved the dead Sherriff’s hand and shouted “Bye bye! Bring more friends next time!” It was faintly creepy and funny at the same time when they shouted. They sounded a bit like happy bees, and a bit like screaming nightmares.
“Clover, you are bleeding!” Mom shouted, surrounded by blood, death, and magic, she was still Mom, and the rest of the world took a distant second place to her baby boy. I felt myself starting to cry. To cover it, I went about cutting throats of men and horses. You don’t leave them to suffer.
Mom led me into the house to clean and bind my wounds. She stitched it shut. I would heal stronger for the cut, but my way of healing was imposing a higher level of order upon the order than had been violated. It wasn’t magic. No wave a wand, sing a song, chant a prayer and everything is like you never got hurt. What I received from the Titan was something older. Growing strong in the broken places, teaching my body and mind from each failure how to be stronger, how to be more flexible, how to be faster. There was no magic in my blood, no magic in my soul. Only learning by surviving.
Mom had finished cleaning me up, and was tossing bits of bread to my tentacle friends. They made a forest of tooth crowned tentacles and she fed them happily like so many abyssal geese. I guess tunneling through an attempted rapist until he is hollow tends to put Mom in a good mood.
I looked at Mom and said what I knew to be true after today.
“I think I need to go Mom. You know no one can touch you here, but if I am around, there will be trouble. I don’t know if the house is protected, or the fields, flocks, hives. Just because they can’t hurt you, doesn’t mean they can’t ruin your life. If I leave, I will take the problem’s with me. Besides, I just learned today there is a place for people like me. Where we,” I gestured to my darkness spawned tentacle friends “fit in. I am going to find this Dread Empire and learn how to fight better, so I can come back and protect you properly.”
Mom cried, and baked. And cried. She dug out everything she had knitted for me for winter to come. She baked sausage rolls, bread, and even tarts for me to take in my journey to the Dread Empire. I may have cried as well, I can’t tell for sure, because the room was very blurry.
The next day, Mom kissed me goodbye, I put my spear over one shoulder, slung my shield over the next and began walking towards the Dread Empire and my future. As I walked the road, I noticed the bushes had dragged all the bodies away. The flowers that dance with Mom every storm are almost as useful as my tentacle friends. Home is where you never have to bury the bodies, and I was leaving it.
I’m not crying. It’s pollen season.
Onward!