Andira Runehand
The Whispering Forest, South Kell
“Runehand!”
Warrior-pilgrims streamed from the wood. Arrows zipped at them from the roof of the great tree. A pilgrim fell with an arrow in her chest. Then another. And another. The handful of pilgrims carrying bows, mostly those led by Yorin of Gwellan, dropped to one knee as their comrades ran past them, then drew, aimed, loosed. The rattle of bow-fire looped up towards the platforms, thudding into wooden mantlets and clattering off clay pots. The horses and livestock who had been grazing in the clearing bleated in sudden fright, as some captain amongst the brigands waiting in the hollow trunk shouted a charge.
The two groups ran at one another, like fighting dogs set loose in a pit, smacking together with a thump of meat and mail and a snarl of blades. Screams rang out, men and women bowled over, as the mess of fighters broke into a hundred individual contests of strength.
Sir Brodun ducked under a swinging axe, hamstrung its wielder with a neat low blow, then swept out his legs. Yorin sent an arrow whistling into a woman’s chest as she ran at the knight. From there, Hamma rose to block a sword-thrust to his eyes, kneed his assailant in the groin, then sliced open his throat as he knelt before him. He moved to engage a third, the other fighters still bleeding to death behind him.
A tall woman screamed something incoherent as she ran at Andira.
Her face was half-hidden behind a bandana, long hair drawn back into a ponytail. She was carrying a short spear that she wielded overarm like a javelin. Andira let the shaft of her own weapon run out through her fingers as she swung. Power pulsed from her rune and coursed the length of her poleaxe. The bandit’s spear disintegrated before Andira’s axe-blade even touched it and the bandit went flying, her leather cuirass coming apart as though savaged by a four-armed makhim berserker. Dead the moment the blow landed.
No.
Sooner.
She had been dead the moment she had decided to attack Andira Runehand.
Three more came at her.
Reining in her poleaxe, Andira took it two-handed and gripped it tight. Rune power infused her body and enveloped her. It spilled outwards into a bubble just as the bigger of the three, a bearded man with an axe in each hand, struck. Both axes swept down together, meeting the arcane barrier an inch before they could test her armor. One axe went spinning as though the wielder’s hand had been cuffed by a giant. The other exploded. Its owner reeled back as though shot in the shoulder, landed on his face and refused to rise.
The other two leapt over him, confident in their weapon skill and their numbers.
Andira gave ground.
Hamma was often criticizing her for failing to practice as she should. She relied too much on the power of her rune, he would say. Trusted too much to destiny.
The first of the two raised her shield. Andira’s poleaxe tore it roughly in half and ripped it from the woman’s arm. The blade’s serrations caught on the tattered hide and dragged the fighter to the ground with a yell. The last man took advantage, striking high while her weapon was trapped low. Andira ducked her head back and brought up her open hand to meet it.
The sword hit the rune drawn into her as though striking marble.
Andira screamed in vicious pain as the blade scored her palm. Blood ran down her wrist and into her vambrace. The force of the impact drove her to her knees. The rune itself was not indestructible, not by a long way, but it was far beyond the power of some yokel brigand to unmake. Through gritted teeth she channeled its magic and pushed back, sending the swordsman flying. His limbs paddled madly until his flight ended abruptly against the side of the great tree.
Andira felt faint for a moment as the strength drained from her limbs. Her hand throbbed like dying flesh. She hissed, smothering it into a fist until the ache passed. The rune in her hand was powerful, and not it her only source of strength, but her magic was not inexhaustible. She had used so much of it tracking the demon king Baelziffar, and now the Greyfox. Drawing on it was starting to feel like pushing against an already tired muscle.
Pilgrim-soldiers belted out songs and shouted prayers. While she had fought, the battle had moved on from her, the bandits pushing her warband slowly back from the foot of the tree. Numbers and blistering hot belief in Andira kept them steady, but the bandits were bigger and heavier than they were, better armed, better fed, and they died hard. Bowmen dueled from thirty yards apart, her lightly armored followers dropping over the open grass like cut flowers.
“Fight on!” Sir Brodun bellowed, whirling his bloody sword through a figure-of-eight above his head, his hoarse voice cracking like old leather. “For the Runehand!”
Andira looked up to the south-facing platforms. They bristled with archers, roughly cut wooden handrails and vegetable pots sheltering them like a parapet. Ragged volleys of fire scythed her warriors down.
It had to go.
Taking a deep breath, Andira rooted herself, drawing her focus inwards. She felt the power in her hand swell as she she traced the crossed interior of the rune to activate its offensive powers and reached out as if to grasp the tree from afar.
They had been ready for a fight.
She was confident they were not ready for this.
She made a fist.
Dead wood crunched around the base of the trunk. The brigands sheltering inside screamed as their supposed castle turned to splinters. And then the tree began to list. It had been dead since the Third Darkness, but even now it was stubborn. It came down with a tremendous lack of urgency, men and women grabbing after railings or flinging themselves from the walkways as it went. Its gnarled body thudded into the canopy of its nearest neighbor with sufficient force to knock the pilgrims closest to it from their feet, shredding leaves and branches and sending a cascade of both down over the dazed fighters’ heads.
“Runehand!” the pilgrims shouted in religious joy. “Runehand!”
Fighting back tears of agony, Andira let the hand drop at her side. It felt like she was holding onto a hot coal. She had to let go of her poleaxe and manually uncurl the fingers one by one
“Fight on!” Sir Brodun roared. “They’re on the run! Keep on fighting! Keep on f–” There was a hiss, a thud, and the knight’s eyes grew wide. He stuttered as though the word was stuck in his mouth. “F-f-f…”
He looked down at the arrow sprouting from his breastplate. His lip twitched with disdain even as his knees wobbled groundward.
“F-f-f…”