Daughter of the Sword

15 || First Battle

I HAD ALWAYS WONDERED how battles start. Formally, like in the stories, or valiantly, like in the songs.

But as the first bodies straggle through the mirages on the horizon, and the screams ricochet across the dry land, I realize they start like anything else—abruptly.

Hooves thunder across the plains, a roaring that rises from the ground beneath us, infects the cracks of the earth and carries their battle cries to our ears. A first line of cavalry, threaded with their own archers on horseback. And behind, the army. 

The archers release their first round of arrows, a cloud rocketing across the plains, bouncing off armour, burrowing in soft skin. Another round. Another. They return fire, the sky alive with birds of death, a collective whisper in the air as they soar towards their targets. 

I glance at the others, the men gathered below where I perch at the top of the sloped tunnel. Lyria's armies are known for their ruthlessness, the frigid determination with which they fight. The choirs sing news of their conquests at every religious gathering. I hear their voices carry in the advancing shouts, the high, soft melodies of victory and bravery, the lilting verses of honour dancing above the crowds, twining between the clouds like a beacon of hope. But when I look around, I see none of that here. Only scared men, clutching at their spears and their swords and their bows, knees shaking, eyes wide. They look so... mortal. 

Then Hallar descends on us, and the world blows apart.

~

There is no scene so horrible as one of battle. As death clashes with death, men unleashing the brute within to slay one another, blood soaking into the ground and screams rising into the sky, painting nature in the gore of our cruelest pursuits. Men pour past me, through the tunnel and out onto the field, reinforcements flooding in to patch the cracks in our lines, to steady a unit not prepared for the battle thrust upon it. Perched above it, powerless but to watch it unfold, nausea grips me so tightly I can barely move. My body shakes. My head is light. My pulse thrums in my throat with fear, drumming up my lungs until I can barely breathe. 

I cannot tell if I have been standing here for minutes or days, flanked by my own guards who watch as anxiously as me. Are they glad to be at this post, instead of down in the chaos? Or would they rather join their brothers in the defence of their kingdom?

A wave of nausea wracks through me then, and I keel over, bent over the ground. I press my hands into the cold rock, breathing deeply. I can taste the blood in the air. 

Too close--they're too close to the entrance, now. If scouts truly spotted them miles from here--how did they do it? Cries of agony, the screams of steel, the bitter sounds of last breaths and lives cut away echo high into the cave, swirling around me in a chorus of despair. A symphony of glory to be sung back home. But there is no glory here.

A cry goes up, and the enemy punches through the right flank, flowing through the breach with the renewed sounds of slaughter. My legs are too weak to get back up as a fresh wave of panic shoots through the men around me, scrambling to push back as Hallar sweeps in with ferocious strength. They could win this. They could take this entrance before it blows. 

Deep in my chest, beneath the fear that constricts my heart, something flickers to life. 

I grip the ground harder, steadying my breathing as the terror flows outward from my heart into my limbs and then down into the ground. It feels like rivers in my veins, a soft tingling as I let myself feel every shred of panic in me, every horrified thought in my mind. Drawing it out, so that beneath it, I can draw the powers up. 

Hallar's forces draw nearer, their black armour like beacons of the Shadow, his evil in human form. My guard breaks apart, shoved by the men still rushing in around us, leaping down to help. I should be terrified, left defenceless like Luke promised I would never be. Except I'm not defenceless. 

My body hums with a different pulse, now, rising to match the fear in me, taking over with my adrenaline. I straighten and shift on my feet, leaning forward and back, talking myself out of it just long enough to talk myself back into it. I can't just stand here and watch. Not with what I can do, how I can help. Not with the lives I could be saving.

No one notices as I pound down the hill and throw myself into the fray.

I release my hold on the energy inside me, let it unleash a music of its own, dancing to the tune thrumming in my blood. I slice and parry, sending blasts of force that knock the soldiers off their balance just long enough to send a killing blow. I don't even notice the death I inflict, actions that spell the end of the woman I used to be, hurling myself through such violence without a second thought. My mind closes down. There is only my blade and me, and the single man in front of me, the target to cut down. Strength flows through me and out the tip of my sword, an extension of me that cleaves through life with the grace of God's warriors, the whispers of legend. 

I sweep a man's feet from under him and he crashes to the ground. I drive my sword through his chest. As I raise my arm again, someone knocks me from behind, and my blade goes flying. I stumble backward, sending a blast of heat at my pursuer. He cooks in his suit, dropping like a stone. I grab the spear from his slack hands and whirl, ready for the next. And the next. 

Someone knocks my helmet off. I impale him at the neck. Another. Another. Feeding that power inside me, obliging its demands. It has become me. And it is devastating. 

As I whirl around and drive my spear through another, concentrating my power into a shield on my back, something happens. A rumble--but not from the mountain.

From my power.

Blood sprays across my face as I finish off another soldier, wrenching my spearpoint through the gap in his armour at his shoulder. He screeches as he goes down, and I twist it in, no time to consider the life I've just claimed. Because behind him, there's another, and another, black armour swelling into the mouth of the mountain. The explosives should be rigged by now. We only need to hold them off for a few more minutes.

The rumble inside me comes again, and a tug--a tug to the outside. I pause and push my sweat-slicked hair out of my eyes, heaving deep breaths, and spot a figure. He whirls like a beacon of death, cutting down our soldiers like wheat in a field, an unstoppable storm of carnage cutting down line after line. Another soldier strikes at my side, and my eyes are yanked away. I whip the air from his lungs and strike as he gasps. Then I take another. And another. But I can still sense the other, this man of darkness to whom my power seems to push me, singing louder and louder.

A roar shakes the ground. The explosions have begun. Another one hits, and rocks begin to fall around me, crushing soldiers with screams of surprise. Soon the entrance will be sealed. I need to pull back.

But the song is so loud, the melody of battle so enticing--I push ahead.

I give myself over to it, to the endless force inside me, abandoning all thought and letting my instincts guide me through row after row of my enemy, leaving nothing but bodies in my wake. Others have stopped to stare. Others still are screaming to take me on. I fight and I fight, the pull of battle still growing stronger, an addiction my body begs to satisfy.

"Lyria!" someone yells. "Lyria, fall back!"

The voice calls at the back of my mind, so faint compared to the whine of my spear as it arcs through the air and sends another target to the ground, but I glance back and begin to retreat, back into the tunnel, into safety. The landslide has begun.

When I turn back to the battlefield, the other figure has stopped. He stares at the mouth of the cave.

He stares at me.

And as our eyes lock, something lurches in my power that sends me staggering. He clutches his chest and his eyes widen, and for a moment, the entire universe freezes. A connection. 

And not even the force of an entire mountain dropping down between us can sever it.