KwaZulu-Natal, 1818
Shaka kaSenzangakhona, king of the Zulu people, looked over the gathered boys with a severe expression. Several of his iziNduna glanced among themselves, worried. In the two years since his father had died, he’d drastically reformed Zulu society.
Spurned as illegitimate, he’d been exiled with his mother as a child. He hadn’t grown up among the Zulu, instead being taken in by Dingiswayo’s father, and it showed. He had a casual disrespect for many of the unspoken social mores and made practically all decisions unilaterally, expecting unquestioning obedience. You could tell he’d been raised by an iNkosi.
Even his rise to power had been controversial, as his father, King Senzangakhona kaJama, had named Shaka’s half-brother, Sigujana kaSenzangakhona, as the legitimate heir to the Zulu throne. Sigujana, a prideful man, had always bucked under the overlordship of the Mthethwa, and had no doubt intended to break away once he became king.
Dingiswayo never gave him the opportunity. Giving Shaka his blessing and several amabutho, the prodigal son was sent back to his people at the head of an army before his father’s body had even cooled in the ground. At the reunion of the two brothers, Shaka had received a kingship and Sigujana, a blade in the guts.
Many of the old guard, men who had served under his grandfather, father, and very briefly under his brother, were quietly horrified at the militaristic path he’d taken their people. His “generous” interpretation of their beliefs had, against many protests, twisted their culture, traditions and rituals toward one purpose.
War.
Mandla burst into consciousness, standing before King Shaka in his ibutho. Expecting it this time, he acclimated to his new perspective much quicker, managing not to lose his balance. This was a boy even younger than him, only sixteen years old, named Thando. He came from the Fakude’s, a small clan within the Zulu kingdom. His chief had sent him, along with nearly every other boy in the ikhanda to join King Shaka’s growing impi. The monarch had made no expansionist moves yet, but with Dingiswayo’s war against Zwide still raging, it was only a matter of time.
Jesus Christ.
Shuffling back through Thando’s memories, Mandla discovered the brutal training regimen the boy had been put through. Forced marches of dozens of kilometres a day. Unceasing practice with the new weapon Shaka introduced, the ixwa, until his hands blistered and bled. Constant drills of Shaka’s new military formations barefooted until their feet bruised, then some more in leather sandals. Nerve-wracking cattle raids on the Xhosa and others, putting their lives at risk each and every time.
As a result, the kid was densely muscled, growing large from the military diet of beef, bread and milk. At what cost though? Mandla could tell the teen had suppressed his emotions to survive and was essentially a sociopath by now, willing to callously perpetrate whatever cruel deeds his king demanded of him.
Said king was inspecting the amabutho today and judging their readiness. Each ibutho was organised according to age, thus Mandla was standing with other sixteen to nineteen year olds, while other regiments were made up of twenty to twenty-three year olds, twenty-four to twenty-seven year olds, etc. UDlambedlu, his regiment, was the youngest ibutho currently serving, but boys joined the army at the age of six and carried rations, cooking supplies, sleeping mats, extra weapons, all sorts of logistics related tasks and even ran messages, until they were old enough to join an ibutho of their age-peers.
Gripping his ixwa in one hand, his large isihlangu partially shading him from the sun, Mandla stood there wondering what exactly his task was, before the system caught up.
Ding!
Objective: Survive training.
Mandla blanched.
What?
A cry from ahead snatched at his attention.
Shaka was leaning against a tree for support, reeling from whatever the iNduna standing sheepishly had told him. Whispers spread through the impi, those nearest to the outburst sharing what they’d heard.
Getting the tea from his neighbour, Mandla realised this was it. This was the moment the Zulu Kingdom died, and the Empire was born.
INkosi Dingiswayo had led a retaliatory attack on Zwide for another one of his conquering raids, but the crafty Hegemon had lured his hated rival into a trap. In one fell swoop, he’d utterly broken the Mthethwa forces, scattering the huge impi all across the savannah.
Dingiswayo, Shaka’s overlord, mentor, and friend, had been captured, tortured and beheaded. Zwide’s mom, Ntombazi, the Queen Mother of the Ndwandwe and a powerful sangoma, had boiled the flesh off his head and added it to the pile of skulls she kept, of kings her son had defeated.
Fuck me, the past sucked.
Of course, Dingiswayo was a historical figure, so Mandla had already known what happened to him, but it hit so much harder now that he’d met the man and actually admired him. Not to mention the horror Shaka would unleash on the plains in his pursuit of vengeance. But empire building was never pretty.
Now animated, King Shaka looked to be raging in the distance. He pointed at the impi, shouting something indistinct, and spat on the ground. Whispers once again erupted among the gathered regiments. It was about the sandals.
Shaka had issued an edict demanding all warriors discard their sandals and toughen up their feet, as he believed the standard leather sandals hindered mobility for what he wanted to be a fast-moving force. Having come from a time with custom-built running shoes fitted with carbon plates and high-rebound cushion foam, he could see the logic in the decree. No one was sprinting efficiently in these.
It hadn’t really been enforced, as some of the more powerful iziNduna managed to convince him that their warriors needed time to adapt and grow the calluses on their soles. But it seemed the news had hardened Shaka’s heart. Without Dingiswayo, Zwide would sweep down from the north and gobble up the entire region unopposed. Without Dingiswayo, Shaka’s preparations for the past two years would have to be enough for the coming storm. Without Dingiswayo, Shaka had no more patience for dissent in the ranks.
The iNduna in charge of Mandla’s ibutho made the call for a forced march drill. They were to travel a distance of eighty fucking kilometres, forty there and back, with no sandals.
On pain of death.
Thando had stubbed his toe on a rock the other day and was thus wearing sandals, but luckily had otherwise taken the king’s edict deadly seriously. The soles of his feet were tough as old leather by now, covered in thick, rough callus, so he had no problem handing his shoes over. But there were several in his regiment that were visibly nervous, and this scene was repeated across the army. What was the goal of this?
They started their march, walking along the path set out by their ruler under the blazing sun. As they hit hot, rocky ground, several men cried out in pain and fell, gradually getting left behind as they nursed injured feet. Men who hadn’t listened to the king’s word. Mandla could feel the suppressed disgust Thando felt at them for shaming the Zulu nation. He had fully swallowed Shaka’s rebranding of the Zulu identity and felt that those who couldn’t hack it must stay home with the women instead of impeding real Zulu men.
It seemed Shaka himself had taken that opinion to its extreme. As those injured men got left further behind, a wave of iziCwe, warriors from Shaka’s own ibutho under Dingiswayo and his most loyal soldiers, appeared behind them, spears out. Chatter spread among the marching boys as many craned their necks to see what was going to happen. It was what Mandla had feared.
The iziCwe ruthlessly mobbed them, stabbing the helpless men repeatedly until they stopped flailing and screaming. As their blood pooled on the dusty ground, Mandla gulped. They had all just found out the price for ignoring the king.
A frisson of tension passed back through the impi as those up front heard what had happened to those left behind. Mandla’s heart was thudding in his ears. He’d seen someone eaten alive by hyenas but that was somehow easier to watch. Maybe because he still thought in terms of murder and modern conceptions on the value of life, maybe because he’d just come from an all-out war with animals, but watching the doomed men struggle as humans just like them savagely punched holes in their flesh, just for being unable to walk, was worse than anything he’d seen so far.
Jesus, this is fucking serious.
Thando had had a terrible bout of diarrhoea the previous night and was not yet fully recovered. Dehydrated, Mandla knew it was only a matter of time before the itch in his throat became a burning, then an all-encompassing need. As which point he’d be a dead man walking, waiting to stumble then be unable to get up and eventually get poked full of holes by Shaka’s elites.
The entire regiment slightly picked up the pace, nervous. They’d mostly all followed the decree, but all manner of things could happen to make someone fall behind. They all saw themselves in those men that had just been killed.
Left, right, left, right, the rapid march under the hot sun was beginning to take its toll after a few hours. None had fallen behind since those first few, no doubt people were concealing injuries to avoid the iziCwe. Traveling across the plains, they came upon a barrier of thorny bushes.
The impi began to turn, to shift its path away from the stretch of spiky brush, but the iziNduna called for a straight route.
They had to cross the thorns on foot.
Panting heavily, again unused to the feeling of fatigue after their hours-long march, Mandla nearly shouted in frustration. It was never easy. The fact that real people had lived through things like this and worse seemed like a cruel joke. But what choice did he have?
Passing the gathered group of men who couldn’t bring themselves to cross the thorns or had tried and failed, Mandla took a breath and stepped forward onto the now mostly crushed vegetation. Even after hundreds of men had crossed it, the thorns still pricked up into Mandla’s feet, as well as scoring stinging lines into his ankles and shins. Luckily he could ignore the small amount of pain as his feet were too tough for the broken plants to fully pierce. He just had to make sure he didn’t end up at the front. The real issue was water.
He knew they would only receive water and a short rest at the halfway mark, but the way it was looking, he wouldn’t make it that far.
Shouts from behind drew his attention. Glancing backwards, he saw the iziCwe catch up to the men who couldn’t or wouldn’t cross the thorny patch. They put up a valiant fight but it always ended in the same way, with the experienced warriors wiping their blood-soaked spears clean above gasping bodies.
Mandla turned back to his front, shaken, but resolute. This would not be where he failed. But still…
This is gonna suck.
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Northern France, August, 1346
Edward III, King of England, Lord of Ireland, pretender to the throne of France, was exhausted. This entire French conflict had been equal parts a nightmare and equal parts successful beyond his wildest dreams.
After the victory at Sluys, the peasantry had risen up in revolt all across England because of his heavy wartime taxation, so he’d been forced to hurry back to London instead of pressing his advantage. After crushing the uppity peasants, the war with France had turned cold. Duke John III of Brittany had died without leaving a legal heir and his seat was contested by his half-brother, John de Montfort, and his niece, Jeanne de Blois. A strategically important region, whoever was in control of Brittany was in control of the maritime trade network connecting England with Gascony, a rich wine trading region in the south of France, owned by the kings of England. It was incredibly profitable, sometimes putting more gold in the royal coffers than all the taxes collected in the Crown’s main territories of England and Ireland.
Both Edward and Philip understood that without Gascony, the English Crown’s ability to fund a war would be severely hampered, and both got involved in the Breton succession dispute. Edward supported John and Philip supported Jeanne. Initially, Philip had been winning handily, until Edward landed an army in Brittany and began a brutal campaign of burning and besieging enemy strongholds. He’d completely turned the tide of the war when the Pope got involved.
Pope Clement VI, appalled at infighting within Christendom, exhorted the two monarchs to sign a three-year truce, temporarily ceasing the hostilities. He summoned them both to Avignon, within the Kingdom of Arles, to try and mediate a peace between them. He was unsuccessful.
Edward left to prepare another invasion, leaving instructions for his men in Gascony to go on the offensive, and he’d join them with an army soon enough. His capable cousin, Henry de Grossmont, Earl of Derby, had won a series of stunning victories at Bergerac and Auberoche over the French, and Edward planned on capitalising. But this is where his ill-luck struck.
Having gathered a mighty army, he set sail from Porchester. He’d intended on landing in Gascony, joining up with his cousin and renewing the push from the south, while landing another force in Brittany and pincering the French between the two offensives. But a storm blew all his ships off-course, and they had to make an emergency landing at La Hogue, a Norman French town, nearly shipwrecking as they did so.
Barely making it to shore, Edward was forced to completely change his strategy. He launched a blistering chevauchée all across Normandy, leaving the land a smoking ruin in his wake. Surviving off plunder and trapped without long-term supplies, when the English came up against the walls of Caen, many thought that would be the end of the campaign. They’d offered terms of surrender, but the French ignored them, imprisoning the English envoy. Edward had called upon God’s aid and lo, He had confused the minds of the defenders and made them make foolish decisions.
This is where his ill-luck struck again, as he’d almost completely lost control of his men during the battle. They’d won, thank God, but the city had been brutally sacked in the aftermath. Initially, he’d wanted to punish the men for their insubordination, but then realised that dead and displaced townspeople didn’t complain about theft and as king, he was entitled to the lion’s share of spoils. So he looked away as his men went fully feral, visiting unspeakable atrocities on the poor townsfolk for five entire days while Edward stuffed barges full of looted valuables, sending them off to London as fast as he could fill them, and waited for his men to get it out of their system. In one move, he’d recouped the costs of this excursion and maybe would even make money off this venture.
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As a wave of refugees streamed towards Paris, King Philip had received word of Edward’s landing and started mustering a repelling force. The English king burned his way east across Northern France, coming to within sight of the capital, before deciding not to push his luck and turning north towards Calais.
Philip would not let him just gallivant across his lands however, and a huge French army, more than double the size of the English host, was hot on their tails. The French king had almost caught them too, as they forded the Somme river at Blanchetaque and only just managed to break through the garrison there.
The past few months had been nerve-wracking, with the entire campaign nearly coming to ruin several times. Now, the men were encamped in the forest of Crécy, with the French vanguard nearly within sight.
Edward was exhausted.
Having desperately marched to keep ahead of the French, finally, he’d made the decision to turn and fight.
Nicola was startled awake by a man jostling her. Looking around in confusion, she recalled her situation.
Yes! I made it!
None of them had been sure how the energy would split itself after the elephant died. Mandla, the idiot, had wanted to try get the elephant to unlock the walls so they could leave. Even if that would have worked, it was the wrong move. They didn’t have the levels to survive outside the starter area. The terms “Mini”-Boss and “Mini”-Elite clearly implied higher levels of both classifications. They’d actually seen an Elite, the oversized baobab tree. Her arrows hadn’t even been able to leave a mark.
Now imagine the first thing we encounter out there is a fucking lion Elite, or even a super Elite or something. Idealistic boy.
He wasn’t cynical enough. The moment the elephant showed intelligence, he folded, trying to find any way to resolve their conflict peacefully. Nicola could see it becoming a problem once they started coming up against other humans. Sometimes, people had to die.
A lesson that Bertrand, the archer whose body Nicola was inhabiting, had learned intimately over the past few months. A victim of a French raid on the English coast, Bertrand had developed a burning hatred for the French early in his childhood. They’d orphaned him and put his village to the torch, before sailing off across the Channel, mirthful with the spoils they’d taken and the women they’d stolen, one of those women being his sister. He never saw her again.
Many on the English side were in the same position, men with grievances against the French who’d decided to take the King’s coin. Those grievances had simmered all campaign, finally boiling over by the time they broke through the walls at Caen and…
Nicola’s face twitched.
That was as much emotion as she showed as she mentally looked back at the sack. It was about as bad as it could get. Sport killing, casual torture and drunken rape orgies were the least of the crimes committed in Caen. Practically all of them gleefully took part, including Bertrand, excited to be finally taking his pound of flesh from the French.
Nicola internally shrugged, harking back to her chaotic childhood and the lawless Durban slums. She’d seen worse.
This is war. Try me when this shit happens during peacetime.
She was just waiting for the notification so she could get the Trial over with as soon as possible.
Like it had been waiting for the signal, the ding came in.
Ding!
Objective: Protect the Black Prince.
Focusing, she flipped through Bertrand’s memories to identify the prince in question. Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and newly-minted Royal Knight. He’d only ever seen the man from afar and knew virtually nothing about the royal family, having grown up without much courtly knowledge.
She’d have to find him during the battle. A battle which was about to commence, Nicola realised, as she looked over the position on the hillside they’d prepared. Pit traps, trenches and wooden stakes had been set up to counter the mounted chevaliers and their heavy charges. Men scurried like ants across the hillside finishing the last preparations, just as the French vanguard came into view in the distance.
The English had about 14,000 men, with 7,000 being a mix of knights, men-at-arms, Irish light cavalry and Welsh spearmen, and the other 7,000 being all longbowmen armed with bodkins. Scout reports said the French army was twice their size, at 30,000 strong. A whole 12,000 of them were fully armoured mounted knights, with another 12,000 melee infantry and 6,000 Genoese crossbowmen.
The lions of England arrayed against the fleur-de-lis of France across the field as the entirety of the French army marched into view. Noble knights in gleaming armour cantered their way into the valley below them. A man beside Nicola spat.
“Fuckin’ French twats. Can smell the arrogance from ‘ere.”
A chorus of agreements rose up at the man’s words, and Nicola allowed herself a smirk. She’d been to France in her time, and while most French people were cool, Parisians embodied this stereotype to an almost farcical degree. It seemed even 700 years into the future, some things never changed.
The setting sun cast a red pallor over the valley as Edward made one last inspection of his army. It was getting late and both sides had marched hard all day, so the commanders all expected the French to encamp for the night and attack at dawn with refreshed soldiers. Riding past the ranks, giving inspiring words and emboldening the meekest among them, the king gave them leave to eat and drink, in order to keep their energy up. He also urged the men not to take leave of their senses and rush out to plunder the French baggage train at the first sign of victory. Many a battle had been lost because a large chunk of the fighters left the battle to go loot the enemy camp thinking they’d won already.
He also needs to cement his authority. He doesn’t want to lose control of his men again.
While the English forces were replenishing their energy, the French side looked to be in disarray. Why weren’t they setting up camp?
They received an answer a few minutes later, as deserters from the French army reached the English side and gave them information. Amazingly, the French wanted to charge uphill, into their prepared position, before it got dark. Nicola looked at the sun with confusion. It was already late afternoon, were they crazy? They had just gotten here and their men were no doubt tired from the march. They hadn’t had time to rest and eat like the English. Getting déjà vu from hearing Edward laugh when he received the information, Nicola was baffled.
This is the second time I’m seeing the French make idiotic decisions in battle. Why are they like this?
A few inquiries to the men around her, especially veterans of previous campaigns, told her about the absolute iron grip that the concept of chivalry had on the French nobility. They had honourable and dishonourable ways to do just about everything. The problem was, their heavy cavalry was so strong that they’d never needed to plan tactics in the same way Edward with his smaller force was required to and their “chivalric” methods of battle had stiffened and stagnated. They could reliably smash their way through any obstacle. Until they couldn’t.
At the news of the coming attack, the English were roused to battle stations, as the assault could only come sometime within the next few hours, while there was still daylight.
Once every man was in place behind the fortified positions, Edward rode out in front of the army and solemnly led them in prayer, knowing that the French had the overall stronger force but trusting that they had the favour of God on their side.
God, and the longbow.
Right as a synchronised “Amen.” rose up from the kneeling English, one of the French horns sounded out from the organised enemy ranks. The French unfurled the oriflamme banner, to much muttering from the Englishmen. The oriflamme meant no prisoners.
Gradually, a line of infantry started making their way up the hill, still too far away to distinguish what kind.
As if Edward really had managed to call God down to join the English side, in the ten minutes it took for the infantry to cross halfway, a sudden squall started raining fat, warm droplets of water, drenching the ground in between the two armies and turning the hillside muddy.
The English, used to rain on their island, simply unstrung their bows and waited the squall out. But as the cloudburst passed, the situation became clear. The infantry that had approached first were the crossbowmen!
They may as well run right now.
With years of medieval archery knowledge stuffed in Bertrand’s head, Nicola knew the Genoese were fucked. They couldn’t unstring their crossbows like the longbowmen could, and their strings were no doubt wet and useless by now. Not to mention the fact that even if a few of them managed to save their strings, longbows outranged crossbows by far.
They never stood a chance.
Stepping forward as their squad captain called out the motions, the archers drew their arrows, nocked them in their bows, and aimed as far as possible just as the crossbowmen entered range. With an exhale, Nicola, along with 7,000 other archers, unleashed a volley from hell upon the French infantry. The arrows rose like a cloud, darkening the sky on their terrible journey towards flesh. Then the arrows fell among them, and the screaming started.
A barrage of three volleys had utterly devastated the Genoese crossbowmen, and they hadn’t even entered crossbow range yet. Looking up at the fortified position they were still far away from, and the archers readying another volley, they made the only choice they could. They ran.
The organised line of advance, torn ragged by the thousands of arrows, now completely disintegrated as they fled for their lives under heavy longbow fire.
A small cheer went up within Nicola’s post as they stopped firing, conserving their arrows for the main army. Her thoughts went to her objective.
Now where the fuck is this Black Prince?
Asking around within her unit, she heard that he was commanding the right flank. She’d have to find him once the battle was being fought in earnest as she couldn’t get away from her post right this second.
A cry from one of the other archers drew Nicola’s attention back to the battlefield, where the chevaliers had started charging. The English readied themselves, nervous against the storied might of the French cavalry, when the wildest thing happened.
What the fuck? Is this… What?
The knights had ridden out and started cutting down their own men!
The chevaliers were among the fleeing crossbowmen, chopping into heads with sabres and spearing backs with lances remorselessly. The English watched uncomfortably as the enraged knights mowed their former allies down.
Random chatter told Nicola that that was one of the customs of chivalry. Cowardice in battle, or perceived cowardice rather, was punishable by execution. The English were horrified, as every veteran had a story of a lost battle they’d survived by the skin of their teeth. Running away after your regiment got routed wasn’t cowardice, it was common sense.
After the grisly butchering of their own soldiers, the French cavalry continued their charge, but the group’s cohesion and momentum had been destroyed by their insistence on killing their own. The heavy riders got bogged down in the mud as they struggled up the hill.
Knowing what to do, Nicola stepped forward, and 7,000 archers stepped with her. Nocking another arrow in her bow, she inhaled, zeroing in on a particular knight struggling with his reins. With a release, she loosed the arrow, sending it flying towards the armoured chevalier within a group of thousands.
Then the guns went off.
Three booming ribauldequins, known to Bertrand as organ guns, went off like bombs on the left flank. Many of the horses panicked and reared up, taking the brunt of the volley of arrows. The distance was still too great to punch through armour, and most of the arrows plinked off, but with thousands of them, at least a few will find the smallest gap in any armour.
Knights and horses went down screaming as their brethren continued to advance under the arrow storm, making slow but steady progress up the hill as the English poured wave after wave of bolts at them. The problem was, the closer they got, the more the bodkins started punching clean through their armour as opposed to glancing off.
First it was the horses. Beyond a certain point, the archers made sure no horse survived getting close, kneecapping the chevaliers’ mobility. Then once the knights were dismounted, the longbowmen riddled them with projectiles, while the constant booming of the organ guns providing an infernal soundtrack to their demise. Against all odds, a few of the chevaliers managed to reach the English lines. Where they were promptly hacked to pieces by the English knights.
Realising the failure of this attempt, someone in the French camp sounded the horn for a withdrawal and regroup.
Funny how they didn’t give the crossbowmen that chance.
But of course, the French knights, mostly made up of nobles, allowed themselves the time to reorganise, racing off from the field of battle. They could hear the grunting of crippled horses within the trenches and the pits, with the muffled cries of an unlucky knight stuck under one of the beasts, frantically begging for help as he was slowly pushed under the mud. No one moved.
Either stupidly brave or bravely stupid, after a quick regroup, the French decided to do the same thing again, charging blindly into the killing field that was already slick from the rain and blood and piled with French bodies.
Again, the English repelled them after a one-sided slaughter as the knights got bogged down trying to gallop up the muddy hill. Nicola managed to get away from her squad under the pretext of restringing her bow and hunted for this Black Prince. She knew he was on the right flank, and the French would hit them there hardest as the big guns were on the left. He would constantly be in the thick of the action.
Like Kavvy says, it’s never easy.
Regardless, Nicola pushed her way through the massed ranks until she saw knights bearing his standard, with the commander himself riding high on his horse, grinning wildly.
He was a boy.
You’ve got to be kidding.
No older than sixteen, it seemed, the Prince was nonetheless revelling in the battle, swinging his sword with a huge grin, as the French had mustered the airheadedness to charge again. The brunt of the attack was borne by his flank as the French had cobbled together some sort of tactics, avoiding the thunderous guns on the left and spearheading an attack on the Prince’s retinue.
Against all odds, the French finally broke past the archers. Into the waiting blades of the patient infantry. Prince Edward charged directly into the fray, unhorsing a man with his lance. When that knight sat up from the ground, Nicola shot a bodkin into his face.
Closing in on the Prince, she slung her bow over her back and took out her rondel knife, staying as near as possible to the battle-lusted heir.
A group of chevaliers, in Bohemian colours rather than French, rode up hard on the gap the one successful charge had opened. Oddly, two of them had their horses tied together. The Prince answered her unspoken question with a laugh.
“John, you blind old fuck! You’re still alive?”
The knight whose horse was being led, now recognised as King John the Blind of Bohemia, retorted.
“A chaotic battlefield, and I hear a woman’s voice? It must be the English whelp.”
The Prince frowned.
“Very clever. Let’s see if your wit will shield you from my blade!”
With that, the two retinues charged into each other in a mighty clash. Horse crashed into horse as the two royals duked it out, the blind king getting fed directions by his standard bearer. The knights devolved from lance charges to murderous, pitiless hand-to-hand combat in the mud. Edward regrew his grin.
This kid is going to get himself killed.
Nicola unslung her bow and let loose, downing knight after knight in the Bohemian retinue. One through the chest, one through the gorget, one in the liver, Nicola was a sniper with her shots. She ran out of arrows in her pack, but glancing back at the arrow stores, she’d be gone for too long if she left to get more.
She needed arrows. But she couldn’t let the Prince out of her sight.
She grit her teeth, taking out her rondel. She had no problem doing it the hard way.
Running into the fray, Nicola stabbed with pinpoint precision, cutting horses’ hamstrings, spooking them into bolting, distracting the armoured knights at critical moments, she was a whirlwind, taking glancing blows but always being one step ahead of true injury. Still, her body filled up with bruises and small cuts.
Reaching the fight between the child and the blind man, she analysed how best to extract the Prince, as he was surrounded by Bohemian knights. She didn’t get any more time to think as one of the knights managed to pull Edward off his horse, throwing him hard at the ground.
Nicola sprang forward, rondel shining like fire in the evening twilight. She leapt onto a knight’s back, punching her dagger through the protective weave at his neck, then pushed his sagging body towards one of his companions, who caught the man by reflex, but then caught a blade in his armpit right after.
Just like that, she suddenly found herself in front of the Prince and an enemy king, not knowing what to do. Edward had gotten to his feet and was desperately swinging his sword, cutting a path out of the encirclement. The king was attempting to ride him down.
Without hesitation, Nicola threw her rondel at the horse’s head. It hit handle first.
Really?
Sprinting forward to pick it up, she saw she hadn’t killed the horse, just nudged it off Edward’s path. But that was enough. She ran at the boy.
“My liege, we must retreat from here, it’s not safe.”
The boy looked up at her with excited eyes.
“Exactly! This is the perfect place to hone my skills as a warrior. But look out!”
Nicola ducked instinctively, feeling a breeze gust past her head as she saw a huge mace-wielding knight ride past with the king. She knew there was no point in trying to run.
The knight came around for another pass, the king urging him on from behind as Nicola squared her shoulders, took a breath and aimed again. Spurring the horses into a gallop, the knight tried to ride them down. Throwing her knife with an exhale, this time the blade sank into the lead horse’s throat. It screamed and tripped, breaking its neck and crushing the big knight under its bulk with a wet crunch.
King John was thrown from his horse, landing in front of them. Nicola looked at Edward. Edward looked at Nicola, then shrugged.
“They raised the oriflamme.”
With that, he shoved his sword into the unconscious king, ending him right there on the battlefield.
With a relieved sigh, Nicola relaxed. She thought she could relocate the kid somewhere safer and ride out this objective in comfort, but amazingly, the French were charging up the hill again, in near darkness now. Edward, as commander of the right flank, was eager to meet them.
Taking stock of the injuries she’d accumulated so far, she realised she was much closer to the brink than she thought, having gotten too used to her healing factor as an Ascendant. She’d forgotten that she’d have to deal with these injuries until the end of the Trial.
Resigned, Nicola retrieved more arrows before going back to Edward’s side, watching glumly as another charge thundered up the hill.
This is gonna suck.