Chapter 70. I Watched Two Women Hold Their Posts, and Forgot I Was in a War

Chapter 70: 70. I Watched Two Women Hold Their Posts, and Forgot I Was in a War

The way Alicia moved...

It was as if the whole world had slowed down for her and left her alone to catch up. She stepped across the gap in a single blurred stride, swung her sword in a short, tight circle, and knocked the arrow out of the air.

She followed through, spun on her heel, and caught a second arrow in the flat of her blade. Then she kicked the edge of Dessa’s fallen shield, which swung back into place with a loud clang, closing the gap before anyone had finished flinching.

"Thanks," said Dessa, in a stunned voice.

"Don’t mention it," said Alicia. "Eyes front!"

Sergeant Holt gave a gravelly snort. "That’s a damn fine bit of work, Lady Ainzfield."

"I’ve had practice."

"You’ve had a gift, more like—"

"Hold the line, Sergeant."

"Aye, ma’am! Whatever you say."

I liked that. I liked it a lot more than I’d expected to hear a grizzled veteran who’d probably been fighting since before I was born call her "ma’am"a’am and mean it.

But still... gotta make sure no one flirts with my girlfriend.

And here I thought she had enough, but she wasn’t finished. A second volley came, and this one clipped Ferris.

He was kneeling at his post with his spear raised, and an arrow punched through the top of his thigh with a wet thud. He cried out and went down on one knee, clutching his leg, and the spear fell from his hand.

"Ferris!" Oswin yelled.

"I’m fine!" Ferris gasped. "It’s just a... it’s just a bloody arrow..."

"You’re not fine," said Alicia, and she was already moving.

She caught Ferris under the arm and hauled him backward into the shelter of the wagon, laid him against a wheel, and yanked a strip of cloth from her own sleeve. "Press that on it! Hard! And don’t pull it out!"

"I... can still fight."

"You can still bleed! Stay put!"

She grabbed Oswin by the shoulder. "You! Take his place!"

"Keep your spear low, and don’t poke at anything unless it’s inside your reach."

"Yes, ma’am!"

She whirled back to the line. I could see her counting under her breath, her eyes flicking from the volley to the slope to the boulders.

Three archers, I realized... She’d worked out how many there were, where they stood, and how far away they were, just by the angle and the rhythm of the arrows.

"Three on the northern slope," she announced, over the clatter. "About a hundred and fifty paces..."

"It’s a thick cover... They’re alternating, so there’s always one drawing while the others are loose." She looked at the others. "Don’t chase them! Eveline’s got that."

"Aye, Lady Ainzfield," said Holt, with a grin.

"And Sergeant?"

"Yes?"

"If any of you let a single bolt through to that wagon, I will personally feed you to the bear!"

"That’s... a terrifying threat, ma’am."

"I’m very sincere."

"I know you are."

I realized I was smiling in the middle of a battlefield, with an angry wolf bearing down on my left. That was what made her good.

She’d never needed to be loud. She could say the most horrible things in a calm, friendly voice, and everyone around her would stand up straighter.

I turned and ran for the river.

Laura had picked her spot with great care.

The bank below the hill was a long, shelving stretch of gravel and black river stones, running down to a shallow gravel ford where the water spread out wide and slow over a bed of flat rocks.

It was the only place the monsters could come at us from the west without climbing the cliff, and she stood right in the middle of it, alone, with the river rushing past her knees and her long sword raised in both hands.

I stopped on a boulder about thirty yards away, where I could see her, and I made myself watch.

The first wolf came out of the dark like a thrown spear. It was a huge, shaggy animal with a crystal collar glowing blue around its throat, and it hit the water at full speed, sending up a wall of spray.

It leapt at Laura with its jaws wide open.

She didn’t move.

I held my breath. A heartbeat before the teeth reached her, she took one short step to the side, dropped her shoulder, and swung.

Her blade passed through the wolf’s back leg at the joint, and the animal crashed into the water and rolled helplessly, snapping at the air. It was a flawless piece of work.

It had all the precision I’d seen her use on the bandits, the careful footwork, the economy of motion, and the sense that she had decided exactly where the blade would go before the fight began.

She wasn’t finished. She stepped over to the thrashing wolf and brought her sword down once, cleanly, and the collar went dark.

’Beautiful,’ I thought. ’Terrifying, but beautiful.’

The second one was the boar. It charged along the shoreline with a roar, shaking its great tusks, and when Laura raised her sword to meet it, I saw something strange happen.

A faint silver light ran down the length of her blade, the way it always did when she channeled her Aether, and the crystal collar on the boar’s neck glowed a darker blue.

The silver light flickered, dimmed, and began to pour off the blade in thin trails of mist, flowing straight into the crystal.

Laura gasped. Her blade dipped.

"It’s heavier," she said, to nobody. "It’s... I can feel it draining."

She almost went down. The boar hit her with its shoulder, and she staggered back through the water, barely keeping her feet, with her sword dragging like an anchor.

For a second, I thought she’d lose her grip.

Then she did the smartest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do in a fight.

She stopped. She let the Aether go entirely, all at once.

The silver light vanished from her sword, and the blade snapped back to its normal weight as if it had been released from a vise.

She swung it up, plain and gray and ordinary, and she met the boar’s next charge with nothing but steel and muscle and years of discipline.

"All right," she muttered. "Then we’ll do it the old way!"

The boar hit her tusks first. She dodged inside the charge, rolled over its back, and drove her sword into the nape of its neck at an angle that went straight between the plates of its crystal collar.

It staggered, bellowed, and toppled sideways into the shallows with a splash.

I was starting to think she didn’t need me at all... which was a strange kind of comfort.

Then the bear came.

It stepped out of the shadows on its hind legs, enormous and slow, with a wide, furious head and shoulders like a blacksmith’s anvil.

The crystal collar around its neck was twice the size of the others, and it burned a deep, throbbing blue.

It dropped down onto all fours, and the ground shook. It swung one huge paw at Laura.

She raised her sword to block, and the blow knocked her back three full steps. Her arms trembled.

"Too strong..." she gritted. "I can’t hold this."

She backed away, angling toward deeper water, and I saw what she was doing. She was dragging the bear into the river.

The deeper it waded, the slower it moved, and the harder it had to fight to keep its footing. It followed her, roaring, lashing out with both paws, and with every stride the water rose higher around its legs.

Its blows lost their speed. Laura sidestepped one, ducked another, and slid her blade across the bear’s forearm in a long, shallow cut.

I wanted to run down there... Every instinct I had said, ’Help her.’ help her. ’

But before I could move, she looked up and found me on my boulder, and for an instant, I saw her face.

It was calm and focused and completely without fear. She didn’t ask me for help.

"Roland," she called, in her usual flat voice. "These things are not fighting normally."

I frowned.

"They stop," she said. "Right before they change direction..."

"Every one of them... They stop for a breath, as if they’re waiting to be told."

I stared at the bear. It had just launched a paw at her, and I watched, with every muscle taut, as it finished the swing and froze.

For exactly one breath, its head tilted, its ears went flat, and a faint shiver ran down its spine.

Then it lunged again, in a completely different direction.

’Oh,’ I thought.

’Somebody is steering them... and I fucking knew it.’