“Hold till they’re in range!” Jesson shouted in that encouraging way a single man could give a force the strength to face a foe ten times their number.

“Now would be a good time to fire, Cory,” Tane said firmly.

Cory simply held his partially glowing dagger out toward the oncoming men, still a good distance away. He stared at its roughly-worked, leather-covered handle. The bluish steel dimmed compared to the ruby-red edges, glowing with his power.

“Cory, what are you doing?” Tane asked.

A few dozen stones cracked against the nearly visible, shimmering shield around the twenty-two standing in the protective huddle.

“Loose!” Jesson shouted as the charging men got within range.

Crossbow bolts flew out and crashed into the Sonofs. Jesson only had ten crossbowmen. Every shot hit, but it would not stop them all. Quickly, and with military discipline, the men readied their second shots and unleashed them.

“Cory, with a shield this small I can hold them off for a long time, but not forever. You must eliminate them,” Tane said, nearly shouting.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jesson asked. “Pikes, hold firm on the shield’s edge!”

“Cory, Cory!” Tane shouted as stones flew off the shield and the Sonofs reached the opposite end of the bridge. Only fifty yards separated them. “Cory, fight!”

“No,” Cory said, and sheathed his dagger. He stared at the falling men with an off-worldly, distant look.

“Cory, you’re acting immature. People’s lives are in danger here!” Tane shouted, flailing her arms with all her lost composure.

“That’s why I’m doing this.”

Tane gave Cory a brief look that should have set him on fire. Then she turned back to the attackers. They’d lined up behind the men with tower shields and had slowed their advance to a trot, covered with linked bits of leather and hiding behind the massive wooden shields that blocked most of the crossbow bolts.

Tane glanced to her right and saw a boulder a few feet away. Using her power, she made a throwing motion and hurled it into the front line of the attackers. The lead Sonofs flew away and the remaining attackers now rushed in, the second line of shields replacing the first.

“Pikes ready!” Jesson shouted.

The attackers reached the shield. Now came a battle that was more close-hand than Cory had ever seen. The Sonofs hacked and hammered and shot at Tane’s shield to break through. Those inside the shield used their long pikes to thrust through it and try to spear the oncoming attackers.

A few in the front line went down with the charge, but the huge shields blocked the rest and a game of hit and miss commenced. Jesson’s crossbows loosed fiercely and the pikes pushed while the swordsmen waited and shouted horrible curses at the attackers. The Sonofs responded by taunting and laughing at the huddled Uniteds.

One Sonof, a girl with two short swords, was skilled enough to grab hold of a pike and pull at it, wrenching it out of her adversary’s hands. As soon as she did, Tane picked up the pike without touching it and thrust it into the masses, skewering half a dozen. After this, she shifted a few of the Sonofs’ weapons to the other side of the bridge.

“Cory, I can’t keep this up forever!” Tane shouted. “If they keep — ah!” Suddenly, the few remaining Sonofs on the hill raised metal tower shields that were polished to a mirror shine. They directed the sun back into Tane’s eyes. For half a second, her shield dropped. “Those—” In that brief moment of vulnerability, a hale of stones crashed into her, and the White Prophet fell to the ground.

The shield disappeared.

There was a brief pause as the two sides realized what was going on. The front line of tower shields nearly fell over when the shield fell. Time stopped, and Cory had a sudden feeling that he’d made the wrong choice.

The Sonofs screamed again and fell into the ranks of Uniteds with a clang of steel on steel and a crunch of steel on wood. The pikemen held their ground for awhile, well-trained and disciplined. But there were too many Sonofs, and their numbers pushed the battle up close. The United swordsmen dove head-long into the Sonof ranks, slashing their way through. It became a melee, and the pikes and crossbows were discarded and replaced with small, curved swords.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“For Middleton!” Jesson cried, and unsheathed his long, one-sided sword. He blocked an attack with his small bracer and cut through the attacker. The battle swirled around Cory, and he knew it would be over soon. But he did not move an inch.

He stood, motionless, wanting to cry out in pain as he saw man after man fall. One Sonof, the girl with the two short swords, cut through a fighting crossbowman and charged toward Cory. She came within arm’s reach, screaming, but stopped when she saw his stare. She stood there, her twin blades ready to strike. Her fiery face for one second held satisfaction with Cory’s inaction. Instead of easily killing Cory, she leapt toward Jesson and slashed and struck at him.

Jesson seemed the only one moving on the United side, and battled with a fury Cory seldom saw outside the Red Prophets. He blocked and parried stroke after stroke and finally engaged the woman. She slashed at him and blocked his blows. When Jesson had to turn from her to deflect an oncoming spear, he chopped the spear in half and the girl cut him across the side.

Jesson cried out in pain but kept fighting. As he turned to the girl with rage-filled eyes, another spear caught him in the shoulder and the girl kicked him in the stomach. He fell back and the girl quickly thrust a sword at his throat, holding him down. As this was happening, a dozen spears were trained on Cory, who stood like a statue amidst the blood, sweat, and death.

“Hold that I may see,” a rough voice said from amidst the mass of Sonofs. The voice had an even more musical tone than the normal Sonof accent. As the men and women parted, Cory saw the large man with the thick but short black beard carrying a long staff. He stood slightly taller than the rest, and had a wise and aged presence that made it obvious he was a leader of some sort. “How many are left alive?” He moved his arms as he spoke, as if they acted strangely on their own, swishing his well-layered sleeves.

“Three,” the girl said, her arm still hard as a stone.

“You missed one, maybe?” the man asked, and looked down at Tane. He went on one knee and checked her pulse. Then he gently extended her arm and removed the Prophet’s bracer. Cory had a momentary feeling of horror as the man inspected the sparkling weapon. “Both Prophets live.” There seemed to be a sigh of relief in his voice as he cautiously approached Cory. “You are a Prophet as well.”

Jesson wheezed a shout, saying, “Kill him, Cory! Whatever bull—”

“Don’t, please,” the girl said, and leveled the point of her other sword a hair away from Jesson’s eye.

Jesson looked very confused, because the girl seemed to be pleading with him, pity in her eyes.

“Jesson, stay still and you’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it,” Cory said.

“The battle is over,” the Sonof leader said, gauging Cory up and down with curiosity. “If you wanted to protect your friends, you should have done it then.”

“They attacked you. And I didn’t want to kill anyone just because someone wanted me to,” Cory said, trying to edge away from the spears in front of him, only to see that he was backing into another group of them.

“Killing because someone tells you to is usually how battles work, is it not?” the Sonof asked.

“Maybe it shouldn’t be then. I don’t know.” Cory looked down at the woman he thought had being a Prophet figured out, the woman he had tried to emulate since the day he met her. “All I know is that I don’t think anyone is worth more than another. And, I… I don’t know, I just couldn’t fight.” Cory didn’t like how childish he was sounding. But he really couldn’t put forward a better argument for what he’d done. He had frozen, realizing the battle was wrong but unable to do anything about it.

The man nodded, as if understanding, though Cory had no idea how that was possible. “A man strikes me, justice will come, a man refuses strife, ask not,” the man said, then looked Cory in the eyes. “You may go.”

He turned around and walked back toward the bridge. As he did, the girl, assisted by others, hoisted Jesson up on a tower shield they’d turned into a stretcher and carried him away. They used another shield to carry the only other surviving United, and several women gently carried the still unconscious Tane.

“Wait!” Cory called out, but was not answered.

“Sonofines, stay here to clean the grounds. Leave a sign telling what happened. Let them have their vehicles and all that’s inside them,” the man with the beard said as he was soon lost in the mass of Sonofs.

“I said wait! Listen when a Prophet speaks to you!” Anger had been brewing in Cory and he couldn’t help his reaction. He raised his dagger in the air and shot a booming blast skyward. He rarely made his blasts make a noise, but he needed to shout.

Immediately after the thunderous shock echoed across the valley, Cory regretted his rashness. But he had to do something.

“She stays with me,” he said. “You can take the others, but leave Tane.” He didn’t dare aim his dagger at them, but he still held it at the ready.

The bearded man stood, his guards standing firm, and looked curiously at Cory. “Why? She is neither of your color nor, apparently, your creed,” he said.

“She’s still a Sevens Prophet. Now leave her here and go away,” Cory said.

“Cory, I—” Jesson tried to shout, and was silenced.

“This woman has wronged us. We must let justice be done to her,” the man said.

“If you try and kill her, then I will kill you. All of you,” Cory said. He began to sweat.

“The blood on your hands has once been thick, I can see that,” the bearded man said. He seemed to be worried for a moment, and gave Cory a pitying glance. “But we will not kill her. A Prophet must be taken before the Sonofall. They will decide her fate.”

“And the prisoners?”

“If they cooperate, they will live. Now please. We must move quickly if we are to see this injured man is healed. I’m afraid I can’t let you have your fellow till she has been tried.”

The Sonofs began to move away again.

Cory sheathed his dagger, walked toward the bearded man, and said, “Then I’m coming with you.”