Enille didn’t waste a moment. Grasping the Sword’s subtle light with her soul, she gritted her teeth and set to work, coaxing out the divine power. Through her mind’s eye, she saw the subtle light spray up from the Sword in a great fountain. And like water, the light fell, raining down on her soldiers as she spread her arms, drawing the power over Trenton’s forces in a wide, reticulated shell.
The ambush unfolded only seconds after the barrier was in place. One moment, Enille heard murmurs from behind about something quivering in the woods, the next, shouts rose up and, a heartbeat after that, the Polovian soldiers streamed out from the western forest.
And the Army of the Light charged to meet them.
The Polovians were tall and fierce, with armor as black as the crows that circled overhead.
Behind the oncoming horde, volleys of arrows swished up from the forest. They crested high over the hill.
It was said that Krog ruled by arrowhead. Polovian bowmen were the greatest in the known world. No doubt, the archers hidden among the trees were Krog’s finest.
Polovian arrows bounced off the magic shield, their shafts snapping in two. The Trenton men yelled, exultant.
The Angel was with them. They could not lose.
But the enemy refused to accept defeat. Their archers continued to fire. Arrows rained in irregular hail.
“Shields!” the Lass yelled.
Her strength was flagging. She could feel the power beginning to destabilize. For wielding the Sword’s powers, short bursts worked best, and though Enile’s skill in maintaining the Sword's miracles over a wide area had grown tremendously since her youth, even she had her limits. And, in the event of an emergency, she had to conserve her power.
She refused to be caught defenseless.
Even so, Enille did not let the shield fall away all at once, but gradually. One by one, holes opened up in the stillness the barrier had created in the air. The holes widened into arches as the protective energy receded.
But her warriors had heard her call. The spearmen at the head of the Trenton line hoisted up their long, thick shields.
Enille smiled.
A few stray arrows bounced off metal helms, while others plunged into exposed feet and eyes, but the vast majority had been deflected by the hallowed barrier. The rest were caught in shield-wood.
“Forward!” Enille yelled.
The screams of the wounded and the dying did not deter the Army of the Light. They marched on, bracing to meet the Polovian infantry.
The two armies met, tide against tide. Trenton shield-bearers paired up with the leading rows of the Lass’ spearmen, guarding them from the constant arrows.
Shocked that the Trentons had shrugged off their arrows, the Polovians tried to slow their advance, but their momentum had already sealed their fate. Their front ranks impaled themselves on the heads of Trenton spears. The rest of the Polovian forces had to divert to either side of the Trenton army.
The tide had struck a wall.
Far behind, Enille heard trumpets blare.
She nodded. Her generals had given the horn signal, just as they’d planned. Trenton chariots rode out from the army’s flanks. The Polovians were trampled by hooves and wheels and run through by lances while they were still trying to disperse.
A lucky Polovian arrow took out one horse, causing the attached chariot to careen out of control. It barreled over Trenton and Polovian soldiers alike, its wheels ripping furrows in the grassy earth.
Sword, shield, axe, and spear clashed as the Trentons overwhelmed the Polovians’ broken ranks.
“Hant,” Enille said, calling to her charioteer, “pull us away. I will be channeling the Sword again. Stay watchful.”
With a flick of the reins, the Lass’ chariot raced across the grassy plain, pulling away from the main line to give her a view of the evolving battlefield. What Enille saw made her breathe a sigh of relief.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Krog had been doing just what she’d expected him to do. He’d put all his might into that first push, only for his archers’ attacks to dash to pieces against her holy barrier. Now, it was only a matter of time. The Trenton shield-bearers would outlast the volleys of arrows, and once they did, victory would be ripe for the taking.
And if fate chose otherwise?
Enille gazed at the Sword.
The Angel would provide.
Another war trumpet sounded, this time from the northeast. Enille whipped her head to the side.
“Hold!” she cried.
The horses reared as her charioteer tugged the reins.
What is this?
More Polovians rushed out from around the forest’s edge and—crucially—from around the base of the eastern hills.
Archers. Archers from the east.
“No!” Enille screamed
The Polovians held nothing back. From the east, arrows arced across the sky, striking the Trenton army’s flank. From the west, the enemy archers charged out of the forest, discarding their bows for swords and spears.
“Hant,” Enille yelled, “take us in!”
There wasn’t enough time to weave a new shield around her troops.
Her heart beat like the distant drums.
“I see your sunlight, Holy Angel,” she muttered, lifting the Sword up high. “Make a spear from the air.”
She lashed out with a furious windblast, aiming to blow the arrows out of the sky.
Enille reached out to the Sword with the hands of her soul. She tugged on the Sword’s subtle light, loosening its threads and shaping them into lances and stones in her mind’s eye. With a yell, she swung the Sword in a broad, horizontal slash, launching the sacred energies at the waves of arrows, blowing whole swaths away.
But it wasn’t enough. There were just too many.
It was a pincer. The legions could defend against the arrows, or defend against the onrushing Polovian soldiers, but not both. Dozens of crusaders fell, their backs pierced by arrows, or speared through by the enemy’s charge.
Emille screamed.
Her army was struggling to change formation in the midst of the Polovians’ pincer maneuver. Neat rows of Trenton spearmen gathered round, forming to polearm-studded squares that fended off the Polovian onslaught, but for every successful formation, another failed to coalesce, breaking apart in the chaos. Bodies fell. Troops cowered behind their shields, hiding in the shadows of their fallen comrades.
“Go!” Enille yelled. “Go!”
The Trenton cavalry moved as one, charging at the second Polovian army.
“Krog will pay for this!” she muttered.
Lifting the Sword, the Lass dug her feet into the loops on her chariot’s floor as Hant steered it around. They raced across Southmarch Plain, toward the Army of the Light.
Once more, Enille twisted the Sword’s power to serve her needs. She took note of every detail as its subtle light’s imaginary colors churned in her thoughts. She noted every color, every form, every texture and motion. Every one of them was a signifier with a purpose of its own. It was the language of the Gods, and Enille had spent a lifetime learning it.
She twisted the weave, changing its purpose. The armies cried out in jubilation and terror as light spilled from the Sword.
The air rang with ethereal sound.
Hant looked over his shoulder, fearful, and wide-eyed. “My Lady,” he asked, “what are you doing?”
“My mightiest miracle,” she replied.
“The Great Hail?” Hant asked.
“No.” She almost smiled. “Something new.”
The Great Hail—the flying ice-boulders with which she’d beaten down the Crownmen's cities far to the north—they were a candle to the forces she now drew.
A whirl of light coalesced around her hands. The horses whinnied in fear as the Sword shone like a second Sun.
Digging her in with her feet, Enille squeezed the Sword’s hilt with both hands. The unearthly metal grew hot against her palms.
“Holy Sunlight,” she muttered, “show them you peerless fire.”
Then she swung the Sword down in a great stroke. Power spiraled through her limbs, dancing like lightning beneath her twitching muscles. Her legs gave out beneath her. Her heart raced, as if she’d stared Death in the face. Enille leaned into her knees and steadied herself by grabbing the chariot and pushing herself back up with trembling arms. She never let the Sword out of her grasp.
Looking up, the Lass raised her eyes to the clouds, and what she saw made her smile.
The sky rained holy fire. The flames descended in columns of whirlwinds, great spiraling cones that corkscrewed downward, pulsing with waves of heat that washed across the plain. The flames flashed in ochre and airy gold. Ignition sparked across the grass, like earthbound lightning, rippling the land with scorch marks. Even the wind fled in terror, breezing past the Lass with a biting scent that stung her eyes and nostrils.
But Enille’s soldiers knew well to hold their ground.
Those who ran died first. Fleeing Polovian soldiers burst into flame as they passed through columns of superheated air. The archers to the west were the next to die. The descending spirals drilled into the hillside, incinerating everything in sight, grinding Krog’s finest into ash and bone. The forest’s crown came alight as the conflagration reached the eastern woods. Trees toppled. Others burst, spraying sparks sap and flaming bark. Polovians at the forest’s edge were flattened by the collapsing trees. Then the whirlwinds came, and all was cinders.
The descending flames died away as they hit the earth. They shrank, thinning into lines of light that winked away one by one.
Enille’s miracle had decimated Krog’s reinforcements. The uncharred half of the main Polovian army fled in terror. With the enemy routed, the Army of the Light recovered from the archer ambush. Combat gave way to chase. The Polovians turned tail and ran, and the Trentons pursued them, relentless and wolven. Trenton’s archers got to shine, taking out fleeing Polovians with well-placed shots from behind.
Panting and coughing, the Lass swung an arm over Hant’s shoulder and slumped over the chariot. Her thoughts swam through a sea of dizziness, giddy with exhaustion. Echoes of the Angel’s power buzzed through her nerves.
She lowered the Sword. “I must rest now,” she said. “We are done here.”
“Where to?” Hant asked.
“Take me back to—”
—But then an arrow whistled past her ears. Hant fell forward, shot through the skull.