…or, Butterfly Kisses
We had a ways to go, but Iason having the flag in his possession felt like a victory to me. A charge went from his body through me. Ignoring the arrows, we raced onward, overshooting the hilltop. We came close to colliding with the arena wall on the other side of it, but at the same time there was no real danger of that. Iason was in control of me, and I was in control of my legs. We swung around and headed back towards our side.
The arrows fell like rain around us, except when they hit. That was more like lightning. I didn’t have time to care. There was a line of armored fighters charging up the slope towards us. Stupid. They might have had a chance on the open ground, but I kicked off away from the hill and we sailed over their heads and their outstretched weapons.
Other fighters got in our way, but we dodged around them or barreled through them. Some of them were brought down by their own archers’ attempts to stop our flight.
We’re doing it. We’re going to make it.
The sunlight was returning around me as Iason got me pointed at the flagging remains of the illusionary fire. There was no sense of animal panic this time; or if there was, it wasn’t distinct from the urgency that moved me forward. Even if the fire wasn’t able to prevent pursuit, the trees would give some cover from the archers until we were farther away from them. We’d disappear and reappear on our own side, that much closer to our goal.
All their soldiers who had been lining up for their charge were now coming back around to block our path, but it didn’t matter. They might have been trying to catch a sling stone in a gladiator net. No matter how widely they strung it out, the holes were just too big.
If they couldn’t stop me from reaching the woods, they couldn’t stop me from reaching our banner and claiming the win. The archers were an annoyance. The soldiers were barely an impediment. They didn’t have anything that catch me.
They couldn’t stop me.
Then the first bolt of lightning touched the ground directly in front of me. Iason pulled me sideways as a wave of thunder-blasted earth sprayed up, and we skidded a bit, losing momentum. The second bolt came behind us, much closer. I leapt forward and poured the speed back on to avoid being a sitting duck. We weren’t heading straight to the forest anymore. It was like dodging arrows again, only a hit from these was likely to be more than an annoyance.
And to think, I’d just compared being hit with an arrow to being hit with a lightning bolt. I didn’t really feature me finding out how inadequate that comparison was.
The electrical blasts were coming hot and heavy now, striking more than one at a time. The fur on my neck was tingling like crazy. We couldn’t do much more than keep moving and try not to be too predictable while we also tried to keep heading towards the woods. The enemy wizards knew what our goal was, though, and that made things easier for them. If they kept us out in the open long enough, we’d be hit.
Finally Iason decided he’d had enough and faked a mad charge straight for the woods, prodding me into a full-on gallop and then veering sharply to go the long way around them. Taking a path through the side territory added to the length of our journey, but it kept us from having to deal with their army and their magic at the same time.
That, and the change of direction seemed to throw off the lightning-slingers. Either that, or they’d exceeded the charges on the phantomed magic item they were using. Or we’d gotten outside its range. For whatever reason, they’d backed off their sky-based assault. I wasn’t naive enough to think that we were home free, but it kind of felt that way.
Then I heard a humming sound and felt a fast wind. Iason stiffened and the banner pole fell from his grip, striking me on the side as it tumbled to the ground. I drew up to a stop, and he circled me around.
The half-elf with the butterfly axes was crouching on a rise. One of her flying axe heads had just returned to its handle.
I felt Iason wobbling on my back and thought he was about to fall off, but he was climbing up into a standing position. I heard his blades being drawn. I stood there boggling at the awesome absurdity of the pose, while wondering how badly he was hurt from the arrows and the axe, but he gave the back of my neck a little kick and I obligingly charged the deadly elfwoman.
She waved her weapons forward and the butterfly blades came sailing towards us—towards Iason. With a fierce, feral, and very un-elven cry, he launched himself up off of my back, over the blades, and towards the Blackwater heroine. He led with his sword, slashing before he landed. She blocked his blade by bringing her bare handles up in a cross, ducked and rolled with his momentum, and sent him flying over her. Her blades sailed back towards her as this happened, but without their perches in place, they just flew over her and kept going.
I hadn’t expected any of that, but I kept right on moving, charging at her. I lowered my head to catch her with my antlers, but instead of getting to her feet she dived between my legs, twisting sideways to avoid my thundering hooves. I heard the hum of her butterflies passing back over us again. I skidded to a stop to avoid trampling Iason, and wheeled around to face her beside him.
He was having a little difficulty getting to his feet. He held his rapier and his dagger, but they seemed heavy in his hands. His clothing was bloody, though there was no smell of it on him. The illusions were tailored to satisfy a human’s senses, not a beast’s.
Iason sheathed his dagger and threw that arm over my neck, holding onto it and urging me forward. He lifted his legs clear of the ground and I carried him towards the half-elf woman, his sword pointing out like a jousting lance. She had gotten to her feet and was turning halfway around to catch her returning blades on the handles of her axes. She had one eye on us and could hardly have missed our approach even if she didn’t, but she’d have to stay where she was or try to catch her blades on the next fly-by.
We bore down on her like we were riding a ballista bolt all the way to its target while she stood tensed and ready to move, to act, as soon as her weapons were complete.
I never did find out what it felt like to get struck with a bolt of lightning, but if I were a gambling man—and I am—I would have wagered that what happened next was a bit more like it than an arrow was. It took longer to tell it than it did for it to happen. Her axe heads flew back to their handles right as were upon her, and she twisted around, one blade shooting towards my head and the other one at Iason.
The thing that went through my head at the same time as the spectral butterfly was that after a few weeks of Callahan’s class, this didn’t seem as bad as it might have. I don’t know what went through Iason’s head. He might have been pissed that he got brought down by a woman, or an elfblood with even more mortal taint than he himself had. He might have been pleased that it was a dramatic death at the hands of a solo fighter, not some grunt or archer or distant spellslinger.
He might have been happy that the bitch with the butterfly blades died impaled on his sword, and fell to the ground the same time as we did. Lying “dead” on the ground, I heard the whoosh and the hum as her blades circled a few feet forwards and backwards, their circuit shrinking with each pass until finally they zipped down to where the handles lay on the ground.
I couldn’t move. It wasn’t numbness. I could feel the ground underneath me and Iason’s body on top of me. It wasn’t quite paralysis. It was like I’d forgotten how to move, like I didn’t have the capability and didn’t miss it. It was more like the illusion spell had convinced me I didn’t want to do anything but lie there and be dead.
I supposed that had to be less annoying or frightening than other ways of handling it, with fighters potentially lying on the ground for an hour or longer if they weren’t recovered before the end of the match.
I’d only just adjusted to the state when I felt my body shrinking and repackaging itself as itself. This took me by surprise. I thought maybe Iason had been able to invoke the change, since that didn’t take movement and he was touching me. Then I felt something like a pop in my back and I thought that life had returned to one of my limbs. I felt like I could stretch it out, flex it. I then realized I didn’t have an arm on my back.
After a moment, it came to me: Vera. My tattoo was finally awake.
I couldn’t do anything else, so I flexed that new muscle and felt her stretching out her back like a cat waking up from a nap, and then give her wings a flap. I could feel her moving around, just beneath the surface of my skin. It was a surprising sensation, not unpleasant. Almost ticklish, but not quite. It was frustrating to not be able to move around and look at her, interact with her, but at least I had something to look forward to when I got off the field.
She crawled around my skin like a pet exploring a new home, sniffing out every corner. There were some, uh, interesting moments when she went places I hadn’t really thought of her going when I’d asked for a living tattoo, but it was when she crawled down my arm and stuck her long neck out across my wrist to check out my hand that I realized what I’d missed with all the being dead I was doing.
The wooden stag bracelet was no longer clinging to my skin.
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