Book 7, Chapter 20: The Command Tents
The sky was brightening, though dawn was not quite upon us, and the clouds were dark, the air heavy with moisture and the peppery sweat of battle. Men were dying all around, and the fighting continued, but their shouts and screams drowned out for me as I stared and stared at the command tents. There they were. My former captors.
Cocked my head. Sweat ran down my face, dripped off my chin. I took a breath. Felt the weight of my metal blade, blood running off it, dropping to the ground.
No need to announce my presence this time, I kicked my horse into a gallop. Leaning down, right arm and sword up, blade down. The first soldier to see me backed up and fell on his bottom. The second reached for his sword and lost his head. The third, his arms, the fourth, his singing voice.
The nun I saw, the one who’d brought me food and laughed at my questions, saying something to whoever was in the command tents, walked out, turned in my direction and froze. She looked to be in her twenties, much younger than I’d last seen her.
Two thousand pounds of horse barreling down on her, she put her arms up, screaming something I’ll never know. I stopped the horse in front of her, the mare reared up on its hind legs, and front kicked the nun into the dirt.
Jumping off the horse, I drew my left sword. The command tent held several of the women who poisoned me that night standing beside an aging man with an enormous white beard, a barrel chest and a broad sword at his hip. They looked at me, jaws open, eyes wide. I smiled, even raised my eyebrows. “Hey.”
Slicing across the soldier who attacked on my left, I spun low, cutting the right feet off another who stepped forward to engage, then backhand sliced through a man’s wrist as he stabbed at me, thrust my blade into another, changed direction to pull it out, cut across a soldier’s throat, and into the tent.
“Wait! Please! We just want–”
My diagonal cut went through her left clavicle and just barely touched her heart before I yanked out the weapon, turning to thrust my left blade through another woman, hitting into her spine.
“Can you blame us?”
She collapsed to her knees, head forward as the life left her. I kicked her away to pull the sword out.
“I was against their plans!” said the next woman, mid-thirties.
“Excellent. We’ll chat in the afterlife.”
After sending her head spinning, I turned to the older man. “And you?”
“I am Duke Haxom, an emissary from-”
His head fell backwards in the worst way possible, hanging on by his skin. Yeah, I should have let him finish that sentence. But there was no time.
Three soldiers, spears forward, advanced into the command tent.
Looking at them, I cut through the canvas and exited.
One spearman breaks formation, rushing me. I guide his spear with my left sword to my left side, allowing my right sword to go overtop the spear, and he runs his neck along my blade as I step past him. The other one jabs forward, I move back, jab, back again dropping my left sword, jab and I rush forward, pulling the spear with my left hand, backhand slice through his neck, sheathe my sword and bring the spear around front.
The next guy knows he’s going to die, his face is a death mask. He approaches, testing, jab, jab, and then he’s going to thrust, I step forward as he does, spearing into his neck with all my bodyweight, pivot on my left foot, taking his spear.
Enemy soldiers all around, I have no time to care about my weapons.
One races towards me, I stab into his eye, pivot on my right, one’s running at me from the other side, I whip the spear in a circle, cutting through his throat, continue spinning, hit a soldier’s chain, another’s shield, another’s sword, plant my right foot, thrust into one’s belly.
I’m completely surrounded and they try to close the circle. I thrust the spear forward into someone, blunt part behind into someone’s face, forward, then backward roll into someone’s legs, he flies over me. One knee up, I grab a soldier’s dagger, toss it into someone’s neck, punch this guy in the Adam’s apple, draw his sword with my right, spinning on my left foot and cut through someone’s attack.
They’re all around, and close, I thrust the blade into the nearest, pull out his short sword as I drop to dodge a sword, stab through the next man’s thighs, pulling back so my elbow hits groin, angle a sword thrust at me slightly away and into someone else, draw that man’s sword as he falls, and spin on my knees cutting every man’s legs near me, stand, jump on the fellow bent over and grabbing his legs, into a forward roll, thrust my blade into another soldier.
Trumpets in the background.
Sweat is dripping off me. I’m exhausted. I’d fought all morning. I’d fought at the parley. Respite was not in sight. I took a breath and thought to myself, ‘God-mode: unlocked.’
Stepping low and right, stab into someone’s belly, left foot down by the dying man’s left, I spin forward, slicing across another’s neck, roll forward, stabbing under his chainmail skirt, back-roll and slicing across someone’s thigh. I catch a blade coming for my face with my left sword high, twist a bit, thrust into their face, release that sword and take theirs, into another’s thighs, sever an ankle, continuing to spin, stand.
I saw myself from the outside then, like the Buddha Himself lay His hands upon me. Only her hips stretching the chain and breasts pushing against steel, and her soft face, made her a girl. A few errant blue tipped hairs poking through the chainmail coif.
She stepped forward with her left, thrust into a spin, cutting across several soldier’s cheeks, then going low spinning on her knees, switching right, left, always maintaining a ninety-degree angle between them, right knee, left, stand, right foot down, standing, spinning, left foot down, gashes open up in necks, blood fountains, heads roll, hands carrying swords fall to the ground.
Every step and movement perfect, her arms do little of the work, almost all the force generated from her body, her steps, her spin. She doesn’t engage their swords and lets them slide past or guides them away with her own blades as she strikes where their chainmail isn’t, their necks, forearms, legs, sometimes their faces.
Red running down her armor, every step a bloody print, blood spraying off her chain as she twists and dances through these men, many falling before they knew where to stab, and those who stabbed true missing, dropping all the same. They fell and they fell and they fell and I ceased to exist, becoming only the perfection of movement.
And my body count rose as I moved between their intentions, through their attacks.
Inhale deeply, exhale long, repeat, repeat, the world returns and there’s screaming and shouting and everyone’s pointing at me, they’re all backing up, until they form a large circle. Their faces are white with fear, many with arms outstretched holding others back.
I don’t need to look and there’s a long line of bodies behind me in a spiral leading back to their command tents. It’s far away, farther than I realized. And I’m desperately thirsty. I shake my head to get the sweat off my face.
Sheathing a sword, I grab my waterskin and empty it. The world returns in full force. Sounds of screaming. Sounds of metal on metal. Rhinos blaring out their horns and horses neighing their frustrations. This is my bedroom.
If I didn’t know what I’d done, if I hadn’t just mowed through these men, I’d think they were pointing at a demon. Their faces were drained of color and not a few had urine running down their legs. So many were pointing and shouting at their fellows.
Drawing my sword, I raised the blade at them sideways and drew it across the crowd to indicate them, “You men! Throw your weapons on the ground and surrender!”
A man cupped his hands, yelling at me, “We’re bringing archers!”
I headed toward him, the crowd parted, men pushing him away from them, and he was terrified, hands up, desperately waving, saying something, until I cut him down. I pointed my sword at them all again, squeezing the blades with all my might, bent knees and elbows, shouting as loud as possible, “You will surrender!!!”
Swords, daggers, short blades, bounced against the ground between us.
An archer stepped out, his bow at his hip. He took a deep breath and tossed his bow on the ground.
I dropped the swords I was holding and raised my voice. “Tell your fellows! And tell them to disarm.”
There was a clattering of weapons, but the fighting continued against their front lines. The rhinos were flanked by our phalanx, and both were advancing, our ranged off to the enemy phalanx’s sides and harrying them. General Sostram had marched his regiments through the camp, and they were now hammering what remained of the enemy phalanx from behind. Their archers kept the cavalry at bay, while our new cavalry did their best to harass them.
Enemy soldiers to my right began to raise their hands, and hands rose like a wave all around the circle. I walked across their lines, tired, but I tried not to show it. I wondered where my other original sword was. It was higher quality than the soldiers’ weapons. Oh! By the command tents. I marched in front of these guys, staring at each one in front of me.
Mest and my bodyguards rode up, to greet me, holding the reins of a second horse. “Ma’am, I brought you a horse.”
“Excellent, thank you.” I turned to the enemy soldiers who were trying their best to listen in, and watching me intently. Cupping my hands, I shouted, “Everyone! Please sit on your behind if you want to survive this battle. And keep your hands were we can see them. Now!”
They sat down, looking very unhappy, and waited. Shortly, they began to talk to each other. Not a few fell asleep.
“Watch these prisoners, will you? We’ll process them later. I’m going to go find my sword.”
***
General Mazdak and I stood on a bloody field, men being led away single file across it, the shadows of night barely, barely being replaced by the darkest of red lights as dawn slowly awakened. Our infantry divided into companies, guarding prisoners. We’d have to see about feeding everyone soon and get all organized soon.
I was covered in blood and worse, and so was Mazdak, his hair wet, dripping watery blood. “Congratulations, General. Excellent leadership. Have you any idea of our losses yet?”
“And Your Royal Majesty, for your leadership and decisiveness. I don’t know how to quite say this, but I’m told you alone captured their reserves?” He blinked a few times.
“Yes.” Pulling the coif off, I shook out my hair. “Now, how fares our force?”
“Ma’am, first may I?” He held a water skin out. “Just bend over so you don’t have water running down your armor. It’s a tradition of mine to dump water over my head after battle. Allow me to offer you the same?”
“Be my guest.”
It was cool and refreshing and welcome, the water running cold over my scalp, down off my head and into the ground below. I put my gauntleted hands in the stream and rubbed them. “Thank you, that’s lovely! Our army?”
“A pleasure.” The man looked toward the city, “Better than can be expected. Though we lost nine rhinos and expect to lose several more. Seven were outright killed, with two put down so far. The rest are not capable of combat, my lady. I’ll be surprised if we can get all of them off the field.”
“If they can’t be saved or moved, we’ll process them as meat. And the men?” I squeezed my hair, from the roots to the tip, before standing upright to scan the aftermath. Hospitals were being set up in the city, but we were also making use of theirs. Our injured were being helped off the battlefield by our troops. We’d let select people from the enemy army help with theirs and were using them as labor to bring carts of weapons and goods inside the city, dig mass graves, and move bodies. Higher ranking soldiers were being questioned.
“We fared much better there, but I cannot give you exact figures yet as I was in the midst of the battle. I would guess that we lost perhaps two thousand soldiers, mainly on our right flank.”
“Ah, that’s unfortunate. I had to assault the enemy on your left and couldn’t make it across the camp.”
“Of course. Do you by chance know how many of your skirmishers survived?”
“My bodyguard rode with them. She believes we lost more than half. But of those, I’m making them cavalry. They’ve earned it.”
“As you say, ma’am.” Glancing at me, he squeezed his hands together in front of his chainmail. “I beg your pardon, but may I ask just how many soldiers you, ah, overcame my lady?”
Forcing myself to maintain perfect posture was growing difficult. I was beyond exhausted. Though I’d slaked my thirst, I was growing hungry. And however tough it was for me, the troops must be feeling the same. We’d all been up all day and night. I’d have to think of a way to rest the men in shifts, as the enemy’s second army would arrive soon. “As many as it took to . . . entice their surrender.”
“I’m beginning to think,” he smiled briefly, looked at the ground, then the city walls, “we honestly should refer to you as Your Divine Majesty.”
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