“When we get back,” Adrian was strapping his bedroll on the back of Pearl’s saddle, “The first thing I’m going to do is have a nice warm bath. Hopefully, I can get cleaned up before I see Maud.”

  Draka nodded that it would be a good idea. Maud had always gotten on him about how seldom he bathed. He was finishing up loading Vigora’s saddle with his own packs with tugs on the straps to make certain they were tight for the ride home.

  Vigora wasn’t standing as still as she normally would. Her ears were upright and alert, constantly turning, and her hooves were shifting. Something was bothering her. Draka rubbed her side to calm her. He wondered if Pearl was doing the same. A huff from Adrian was all he needed to hear to know that she was.

  “What is wrong, girl?” Adrian held her by the cheek to look into her eye on that side. “You sense something?” To Draka, “I think she smells something. Bear? Wolves?”

  Vigora stomped sideways and her head shot upright. Draka and Adrian met eyes.

  “Men,” Adrian didn’t have to say it.

  Both of them climbed into their saddles without a second thought. The horses didn’t wait for their command to spring into a gallop. The moment Draka and Adrian were on them, they were moving, dodging between trees and onto pathways that were narrow and snaking. They leaned into their horses’ manes to keep from being struck by the branches. The forest had become a blur of bark and shapes. Pearl and Vigora were on the verge of panic.

  Draka felt the arrows that sliced the air passing his face. Of course I forgot my plowing bow! He drew his sword and tapped the metal of his stirrup with it as loudly as he could.

  Adrian, who was on another path that was to the side, heard it and drew his own. His path was dipping him in and out of ditches. An arrow flew over his head and Adrian turned towards the direction of its sender with a point.

  Draka nodded and leaned as he drew his handaxe in his right hand, tapping the opposite knee on Vigora’s side. Vigora leapt between two trees with a kick into one that fully turned them sideways.

  The archer peaked for another shot from behind a fallen tree. Draka let his axe fly as Vigora carried him after it. The handaxe dug into the man’s face just before Draka reached him to pull it out as Vigora leapt over. A crossbowman was hidden behind the same felled tree and let a bolt fly as he jerked back from their passing. The bolt harmlessly sliced Draka’s fur coat the same time that Pearl carried Adrian over top of the man. Drops of blood trailed in an arch with Adrian’s lightning fast strike across the crossbowman’s shoulder as they passed.

  “More on the left!” Adrian called, now on Draka’s left.

  Draka was gritting his teeth. He wished he could add his own legs to Vigora and Pearl to move them faster for the road. He wished that his heartbeat could make them fly from within the confines of the forest and bring them away from the ambush. He wished Adrian wasn’t with him. That he had brought his bow. He didn’t count how many there were. They were behind them. They were on either side of them. They were in front of them.

  Arrows whirled past them. Bolts struck their saddlebags. One struck Adrian’s coat. An arrow struck Pearl’s rear, just above her thigh, making her whinny and stagger. Adrian cursed. Draka directed Vigora to move closer to him in their flight. Pearl was slowing. If she fell…

  Draka searched for markings in the assailants he could see. In their fleeting appearances, he saw none. He threw his handaxe only at those he would pass, but after the third time, it bounced into the void of the foliage. Nothing. His breath quickened. He tightened his grip on his sword. His shoulder was aching, screaming, pulling. But he had to hold it, he had to be ready. He swung as Vigora brought him close enough to strike one. The jolt of the impact was enough to make him nearly scream.

  The road was ahead. He and Adrian were side by side, Vigora and Pearl keeping pace with each other with leaps and bounds toward the light beyond the trees. Just a little further.

  Their enemies were scrambling. Spears were being lobbed at them. Vigora and Pearl were used to that. They spread and came back together, letting those flying spears pass harmlessly by, before zigzagging between trees and bushes for the next.

  Vigora, no…Vigora’s rear legs rolled over each other as they came onto the road. Draka already knew before she plummeted from beneath him. He winced through the sudden vice gripping his heart.

  Draka slapped Adrian’s back, signaling for him to flee to safety, just before he pulled his boot from the stirrup on the side he knew she was about to fall onto.

  “No!” Adrian cried as Pearl’s pace pulled him away from Draka’s reach.

  Vigora whinnied and stumbled, crashing down on the spear that had dug through her thigh and into her gut.

  Draka rocked the opposite way barely in time to keep his leg from being caught beneath her as she crumbled into the ground. He was launched into a roll, following her hard scrape along the dirt that flew around them in a cloud, her hooves still kicking as she shrieked. His breath was thrown from him the moment he hit but his eyes were on his beloved mare, his beloved Vigora, as she kicked and whipped herself to stop her momentum across the ground.

  His shoulder crashed on every small stone, his neck was twisted and bent painfully by the hardness beneath him, his feet and arms flailed. He heard her screams soften to agonized moans only as his own uncontrolled roll came to an end. His sword clanged to the ground somewhere ahead of them.

  Draka rolled onto his back to let air fill his lungs. Only the tips of his outstretched fingers could feel the coarse tips of Vigora’s short white fur beside him. He could hear her labored breathing. She was still alive but there was a faintness to it, a whine with every inhale. Despite the crushing pain in his shoulder and from where his face had been scraped across the ground, from the many times he had struck jutting rocks in the road, he raised himself and crawled to her.

  Blood soaked over his knees from the puddle that was filling under her. He moved his hand over her side.

  He didn’t look toward the leg that was twisted and unnaturally straightened from beneath her.

  He didn’t pay heed to the men who were rushing his way through the forest and onto the road from where they had emerged.

  He went to her dish face, lying on the cold ground, her white nose splattered with blood and scrapes. Her pale blue eye he could see looked up to him with such fear beneath her long lashes as her bloodied lips lapped for air.

  Draka ran his hand over her cheek and grinned warmly down at her. Fourteen years, she had been his steed. Fourteen years, she had carried him into battle. His mischievous, vigorous Arabian mare.

  Her lips formed a smile as she watched him. Her fearful kicking legs rested, though they still shook, as her pale eyes softened.

  You were always the best horse I could ever have had, Draka wished he could say to her. He leaned his forehead against her cheek so that their eyes were nearly touching.

  “Draka,” Adrian was beside him. He put a hand on Draka’s shoulder, the other was holding the handle of his sword out for him to grab. His voice was calm, knowing. “Your sword.”

  Vigora wasn’t shaking anymore. Her pale blue eyes didn’t follow him when he lifted himself from over her. Her lips were drooping over her teeth from their final smile.

  Draka turned a glare toward the men emerging onto the road. He stood.

  Adrian handed his sword to him with a knowing nod.

  “God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can,” Adrian removed his coat and tossed it to the ground as Draka did the same. Through gritted teeth, he finished with, “And the power to make them pay for causing those changes.”

  Draka pressed at the ache in his shoulder. He pulled off one of the straps holding a pack to Vigora’s saddle and tapped Adrian to follow as he sank off the road, leaving Vigora’s corpse where it lay, into the cover of the trees before the approaching men could see them.

  He crouched behind a bush and began wrapping the strap around his fist gripping his sword. Adrian helped to tighten it over his fingers and around his wrist. No matter how much it hurt, he wasn’t going to let go of his sword until he was done.

  “There’s a Paladin among them,” Adrian whispered as he tightened the strap and buckled it. Their eyes met. “I saw the marking. Saint Olga. Pearl’s on her way back. If we survive, she’ll bring back help.”

  Draka nodded. He gave Adrian a look but Adrian shook his head.

  “There’s more behind us,” Adrian said with a jerk of the strap to test that it was tight enough. “We either fight or die.”

  Draka shook his head. You need to go. He pressed on Adrian’s shoulder.

  Adrian shoved his arm away, “I’m not running this time. I already lost one father, I’m not going to stand by and lose another. Now, pray with me.”

  Draka nodded. He was shaking. He already lost Vigora, if anything were to happen to Adrian…

  “Our Father, who granted David victory over Goliath,” Adrian prayed in a hurried whisper, bowing his head, “we ask that You are with us as we face our enemies this day. We pray for Thy guidance and wisdom in the fray. If it is Thy Will that we should fall, we ask that You protect those we leave behind, that you grant them long and peaceful lives. But if it is Thy Will, O Lord, we ask that you grant us victory this day against these who have defied Thy Will and Thy divine purpose. Raise us to face them as their equals and grant us the strength, wisdom, and power to overcome their might. And may Saint Olga aid us in rebuking those who have desecrated her sacred works. We plead the Blood of the Lamb, Amen.”

  Through You, Lord, and only You, do I have strength. Through You, all things have I been given, and only so that I may serve You, in Thy name, to do the works of Jehovah thy God, and none other. For it is Thy Will, no other, for which I have been granted all my blessings. Without You, I am nothing. With You, I am everything. Guide our hands, O Lord, for without Your guidance, we will meet our judgment by Your Will and Your Will alone.

  Amen, Draka opened his eyes. He pat Adrian’s head.

  “I’ll see you in the center,” Adrian pressed his forehead to Draka’s before slipping silently into the trees.

  Draka lifted himself into a crouch to peer around the tree they had huddled beside.

  “Your way has been found again.” The voice thundered through Draka’s bones, pounding through his heart and into his muscles, into his shoulder, and through his fingers.

  The ache in his fingers faded.

  The knot in his shoulder loosened.

  The pain was gone.

  He felt the Holy Spirit filling him, strengthening him, healing the wounds that had been plaguing him for months. “In My name, with the blessing of Saint Olga of Khiev, rebuke them.”

  Draka moved quickly, crouched down, through the trees. Between shrubs, weaving around bushes, over and under branches and logs overgrown with vines, he made his way toward them in silence. Their grunts and gasps were silenced by Adrian somewhere nearby as Draka came upon the first with a leap from the cover of a brush pile. He covered the man’s mouth as his blade pierced his side between the plates of his armor. Draka didn’t hesitate before moving on to the next. And then the next. He followed the advance of Adrian’s movement, followed the silenced groans of surprised foes that echoed through the forest, the cries of their enemies who were now scrambling to find them.

  Draka took up the bow of one of those he had killed and a handful of arrows. He let fly with the first, gripping the bow with his sword still in hand, to stop one from leaping at Adrian’s flank. Adrian had been felling one with a leaping two-handed strike when the arrow caught another who would have hit him from behind. Draka twisted to notch another arrow and let fly at another charging his way. It struck true.

  Grant me True Sight, Lord, to see my foes, Draka saw the red glow of corruption surrounding the fallen Paladin ahead of them. Three others had the hovering of the red hue about them, showing that they were the Clerics with him.

  The knights and archers with them were not corrupted. They were just men. He let the last of his arrows fly at those he could see. Two met their targets. One only made its target fall into the leafy ground to be slashed by Adrian as he ran past.

  Draka started for the other three he had missed with a toss of the bow. He kept close to the trees, using them as his shield and armor from their strikes, while parrying and striking his way through them. Metal chimed and blood painted the bark and leaves around him, though he didn’t slow his steps. He took up a shield from one.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Now that they were curving toward the Paladin and his Clerics on the road, Adrian and Draka were moving uphill, weaving through the trees, wading through their thinly armored archers.

  Adrian had taken a sword from one of his foes and was using the trees to leap away from their arrows. He was closing their distances quicker than they could draw, splicing through their leather jerkins in arching swings as he danced around their attempts to catch him. One shot their own trying to get him, only to be struck down barely a breath later.

  Adrian ran into a slide to behind a tree as arrows flew past. He was only a few paces from Draka when Draka did the same. Draka was heaving to catch his breath.

  Adrian gave him a worried glance. He, too, was trying to catch his breath but…Draka’s heart stilled. Adrian had an arrow protruding from his chest that he was cradling.

  Draka started for him but Adrian shook his head. He gave a curt nod over his shoulder. They were waiting for Draka to move from cover. And it wasn’t Adrian’s only wound. He had slid himself to the ground with a bloodied leg extended, pooling blood around it from wounds he couldn’t see from where he was.

  Men were on the move from the road. They were rounding into the forest for them.

  Draka crinkled his brow with a wince. He was about to lose Adrian, too. His boy. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. No.

  He looked about him for some way to get to him. If he could get to him. If God would allow him to lay hands on him…

  Draka looked around him. There must be some way.

  Adrian lifted a bow onto his lap weakly. He notched an arrow with a glance in his direction.

  Draka shook his head. He can get to him. He just needs to find the right way.

  Twigs snapped. Leaves rustled. They were getting close to positioning themselves. Adrian was going pale even as he smiled in Draka’s direction.

  “Remember Rostov?” Adrian winked.

  Draka let out a long sigh with a heaviness in his eyes. With all his might, he threw the shield across to Adrian. At the same time, Adrian let his arrow fly at one who was coming up behind Draka.

  Draka charged up the hill for the road, knowing that Adrian was pulling the shield to cover himself before knocking another arrow.

  Please let him live long enough for me to save him, Draka begged as he climbed up the steep leafy hill, rolling sideways to dodge the arrows that sliced through the air at him.

  He heard Adrian’s shots strike true behind him. He heard the thunks of the arrows that his shield protected Adrian from. He heard the rushes of the men leaping down the hill to meet him.

  Draka rolled onto his feet with a strike that cut down one and twisted into another on the next that split the strap around his wrist. A parry from one and a slide from another, Draka sent an explosion of holy light that pressed his attackers stumbling back from catching him from behind. He cracked one in the face with the ruby pommel and sent his blade into the leg of another behind him, staggering as a handaxe struck into the pocket between his chest and his right shoulder.

  He grimaced through the aching numbness that sprayed down his right arm. He dislodged his blade, sending himself sliding back downhill with an arching upward swing. It sliced the one with the handaxe from groin to chin. His descent stopped with a foot on a tree root.

  He grunted from the pain, clawing through it to get back on his feet. More were coming, more were charging down the hill for him, more were rounding behind him, more were being downed by Adrian’s arrows. A shadow covered Draka from the road and he looked up to see the Paladin looming from it.

  Draka clambered upright as the three Clerics flooded around the Paladin down towards him. Draka braced himself, leaning into the bent leg in front of him on the hill with the locked knee of the one holding him from sliding down it. His right side was hurting, but he could still move his arm—painfully—to grip his sword. Their maces clicked to send their rivets outward as they charged toward him.

  Gritting his teeth, Draka raised his sword into the high guard stance. He knew that no more arrows were being notched by Adrian behind him. He knew this was Adrian’s only chance, here and now. He had to fight. He had to win. For with God, all things are possible. With God, there will always be victory. With God at his side, Adrian will live.

  If it is His Will.

  The pain was making his arms shake as they came within reach. He was fighting against it, against the weakness in his own body, draining with the blood that flowed down his chest and side. And as they reached him, Draka used the slope to dodge one and knock the other tumbling past him. He thrust his sword through the third in the same movement. He took the mace from the one he ran through, letting them tumble past him with his sword, and he struck the last hard across his temple.

  The Paladin leapt.

  Draka had no warning. He was barely able to meet the Paladin’s jagged blade with the steel haft of the Cleric’s mace to a resounding thunderous chime. The impact sent vibrations through Draka’s bones even before he was knocked backwards.

  He slid down the slope until he hit a tree with a hard crash of his ribs and his breath with them. His body quaked.

  The Paladin was carried by red light down the hill. The trees bowed in his wake. An unholy smite against him.

  Draka called on the Holy Spirit to burst from him as the shield against the smiting. Brightness blindingly flashed as red and blue auras struck. A burst of unholy light crashed through Draka’s aura, bending him into the tree he had crashed into, stretching his spine in a painful arch.

  He ground his teeth to keep from screaming. His head spun. His eyes wanted to loll back. The jagged blade was raised. Draka’s shaking vision was filled with the tainted sigil of the Order of Saint Olga in a flash of red as the unholy aura pressed through all he had within him.

  In You, all things…Draka sent a burst of Holy Light against it, pressing the corrupt light away, pressing the Unholy Paladin back from him. I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.

  “Take Jehovah thy God’s arms,” the voice thundered.

  Draka curled his fingers as if he were gripping the hilt of his sword as holy light enveloped him against the overwhelming evil emanating from his enemy. There were hands on his shoulders, lifting his arms, curling around him, embracing him. Lifting him. Bracing him.

  Metal poured from the light across his chest and arms, gripped his legs and draped over his face, wrapping his fingers. Out of the light, armor formed around him, encasing him in steel that glistened with a holiness he had never felt before. He felt the hardness of the handle gripped in his hand even before the light brightened and writhed into tendrils that hardened into the form of a long double-edged sword.

  Draka let no sound escape his lips but the light roared around him, disintegrating the fallen Paladin’s thick armor in a storm of cinders.

  He swung the holy sword with all his might, strengthened by the invisible hands moving his arms, on the Paladin.

  The unholy light dimmed into splatters of blood as Draka cut through the man who stared in dumbfounded awe.

  Thunder rolled across the forest, spraying bits of bark and debris around him as he struck the Paladin once more, this time taking his head in a single hard swoop of the blade God had bestowed him.

  The brightness of the holy light faded and the forest became still.

  Draka staggered to keep on his feet. The helmet, the armor that God had covered him in, the sword that had been placed in his hands, fell to dust around him as he stumbled into the tree with a hand to his wounded shoulder. He only took a breath before running, stumbling to keep balance, for Adrian.

  He threw the shield to the side when he reached him. Adrian’s head had fallen slack to one side, blood dripping from his swollen lips. A puddle of blood had soaked the brown leaves black beneath him. Draka felt for his pulse. He searched for any sign that Adrian was still breathing. Please, Lord, please don’t do this again. I beg you, please grant me permission to heal him. Please work through me to heal his wounds.

  There were branches being broken. Leaves were being stepped on.

  Draka winced. His right arm was hanging nearly limp. His leg trembled just for want of bend. His gut ached.

  He grabbed Adrian’s falchion and awkwardly forced his bloodied right arm through the loops of the round shield. With a hand on the tree over Adrian’s limp head, Draka pressed himself back onto his feet, finding it far more difficult than it was before.

  He twisted in jerks against the tree, wincing with every shift, every pulse of pain through his body. Numbness and pain were intertwined, laced together. He kept the shield partially over Adrian but raised the falchion, ready, as he watched the figures coming for him. He looked to heaven with eyes that were lolling from exhaustion and weakening flow of blood draining from him.

  Arrows flew from the foliage in front of him. He ducked and pulled the shield into their paths. One and then another struck it. Another arrow caught Adrian’s leg just above the ankle. Adrian’s groan was faint. Draka grinned at the sound, emboldened. Still alive.

  Strings slapped from the other side of Adrian and Draka rolled to throw himself with the shield over Adrian. Arrows struck the shield again. Another stuck Draka in the back of his thigh.

  He heard the whistle and felt his hair swish from arrows grazing past his head and whirled the shield to cover his back just before a few more struck it. Another arrow pierced his back and he arched.

  The shield fell from his arm. He clawed to reach for it, but his arms were numbed by the pain. He felt the arrows pierce his back, stick in his thighs, pin his arms. One went clean through his hand, yet he dug into the ground, into the leaves with the arrowhead as his anchor, and pulled himself over top of Adrian.

  Lord, let me heal his wounds so he may survive this day. Draka placed his hand on Adrian’s chest. His faint heartbeat was music playing against Draka’s resounding agony. His hand glowed with light as another arrow struck deep into his back, stifling his breaths.

  You will live, Draka grinned as he tucked Adrian beneath him.

  “Dimitriy, with me!”

  Horse hooves galloped past them in explosions of muddy leaves.

  Aurie slid across the ground on her knees to his side, letting an arrow fly from a bow she held crossways the way he once showed Maud. She quickly notched another arrow and shot it at another between the galloping hooves of a knight charging past her. In a swift spin, she grabbed the shield from beside Draka on her way to her feet, just in time to crouch behind it as a spear crushed into it.

  “Hold on, Draka,” Aurie said as she leapt to meet a charging archer with a swing of her own sword and a blast of blinding holy light. “Don’t you die on me!”

  “They’re coming up on the flanks!” Nina called.

  The horn was sounding in between the chimes of steel on steel, steel on flesh.

  Draka put his ear to Adrian’s cheek. He was breathing easier now. He felt Adrian’s chest rising and falling.

  Draka struggled for every gurgling breath. He was limp. Lolling in and out of light and dark. Aurie was beside him, her pale blue eyes looking into his with such worry that he wanted to reach out and reassure her that this was God’s Will.

  Darkness.

  A severed arm bounced across the ground between scuffling boots.

  Darkness.

  Aurie brushed Draka’s hair from his face, blood splattered over her otherwise perfect face, even with her face drooping with fear.

  Darkness.

  Nina leapt onto a man’s back, plunging both her blades deep into the narrow space between his neck and the collar of his armor, bringing him to his knees. Aurie was twirling through the air over their heads to land with two blades that broke through the armor of one who would have struck Nina from behind.

  Darkness.

  Aurie loomed over him with her eyes shut, her swollen lips mouthing a silent prayer as the blood that was smeared across her face dripped over him, pouring from wounds he couldn’t discern. Her hands glowed with light as they touched him. He welcomed the rush of life flowing through him, flushing away the pain and ache throughout his body from her.

  She finally opened her eyes, piercing deep into Draka’s gaze, as she moved her hand to cover his cheek with its warmth. Tears were trickling paths through the blood on her face. She caressed his cheek, pulling a swollen, split lip into a wide smile.

  “You’re safe now,” Aurie said as the tears began dripping onto him in mixtures of blood. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  “There’s more!” Dimitriy called before blowing into the horn another call for reinforcements. “We need to go!”

  “Spoke too soon. Alright,” Aurie stood from Draka. She had on a chainmail shirt that must have been taken from one of the fallen and a sword in her hand already dripping with gore. She pointed the sword to two knights who were just within sight, “You two hold them off us. Dimitriy, help us. Nina, Adrian will ride with you. The King with me.”

  “This is the last time you go anywhere without a full guard, my King,” Nina growled as Aurie pulled Draka’s arm over her shoulder and heaved to get him onto his feet.

  He reached for Adrian but Aurie tugged his legs to move him away.

  Arrows whizzed past them. Aurie stumbled, nearly dropping Draka, but she never let go of him, never stopped dragging him toward her horse.

  The knights and Nina shot arrow after arrow while Dimitriy lifted Adrian over his shoulders and rushed him to the other horse nearby. Nina let out a shriek and a curse. Draka turned, clambering to do something, but Aurie pressed him into the saddle.

  “You can’t help her!” She forced him onto it.

  Dimitriy hefted Adrian onto the other horse and rushed to Nina, who was being covered by a knight with his shield. A tap on the knight’s shoulder as Dimitriy lifted her and he kept his shield covering Dimitriy’s path to her horse. He tossed her over it. Nina took the reins and held Adrian’s limp body to her with a screaming whip that sent her horse galloping onto the road.

  “Dimitriy!” Aurie called after him, her arm wrapped around Draka, pulling him tight against her in the saddle.

  “Go! We’ll hold them here!” Dimitriy answered, slapping her horse’s rear.

  Draka was too weak to raise his hand. Too weak to lift his head, to disagree with them sacrificing themselves. Too weak to look away as he watched the three men form their shield wall on that steep slope below. Too weak to turn his eyes even as they rode past Vigora’s lifeless heap, her white fur stilled and stained by the broken spear jutting from beneath her. Too weak to look away from her open eyes staring into nothingness as they passed.

  “I know,” Aurie held him tighter against her. “I know.” He could hear the trembling in her voice over the beats of the hooves on the dirt road. The pain in her heart spilled through her battered face and split lip, echoing with each word as she said, “I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry, Draka.”

  He felt her tuck her wet cheek against his, shifting him to limply watch the road in front of them, watch Nina rocking in her saddle over Adrian from the arrow jutting from her side. “I’m here. We’re here. You’re not alone. You’re not alone. Don’t fall away from me now.”

  “…You’re safe now.”

  Kings & Creatures & Sergey Azbel – Paradigm Zero (Fleeing/ The Ambush)

  Hans Zimmer – Injection (Sacrifice for Adrian, 'You will live.')

  Esterly – Losing Hold (feat. Austin Jenckes) (The rescue arrives)