Previous Part: Nethersfar: Into the Cold Unknown.
“Run for the cover of the forest!” yelled Dracomeer who had very quickly jumped out of his covers, “I’ll use my powers to keep them at bay as best I can until you’re all in.”
Springle wanted to stay behind and help Dracomeer hold off the advance of the cavalry charge, but he knew he also needed to help protect the Princess. Springle was surprised how quickly her guard had coalesced around her as they escorted her in the general direction of the forest, Knot was running close behind them. It was pitch black and hard to see anything, including any trees of the nearby forest, but they knew they were heading towards it.
Springle glanced back towards Dracomeer for a moment, he had concocted some kind of luminescent bubble that would likely help to hold the attackers back, evidently some of their fire arrows bounced off of it. If anyone was able to take them all on easily, it was either Springle himself or Dracomeer, they were both powerful and able to do extraordinary things, and that’s why it was important for Springle to keep himself close to the Princess, as if they managed to break past Dracomeer, Springle would be their next best hope.
A few of their own horses galloped past them towards the forest as well, many of which carried their supplies and other items, some belongings had been left scattered on the ground, including many quilts and covers, but there was not much that could be done about that. Those horses were very intelligent, following them into the forest.
They eventually reached the forest and entered it and stopped a way in to turn back and see what was happening. Dracomeer’s bubble shield was beginning to go down and he was evidently running towards the forest now as well, he was very fast, but the cavalry was gaining on him, he turned a couple times and shot powerful bolts of lightning at them, felling a number of them from their horses, but others overtook them to keep up the chase. They sure were brave to keep going after Dracomeer, thought Springle, but there were many of them, almost the size of a small army.
Eventually seeing that he was going to be overwhelmed Dracomeer did something quite amazing, a huge bolt of lightning came down from the heavens and hit Dracomeer and in a flash he was gone, vanished. The cavalry slowed for a moment, quite clearly confused, but then shook it off and started heading in the direction of the forest. Not good, thought Springle, it was now his turn to do amazing things, his sword was pulsing at his side, eager to taste death, Springle no longer liked that feeling as he once did, it made him uncomfortable, but if he had to use it, he will. He unsheathed the massive sword ready.
The Princess and her guards stumbled up behind him, “they hold banners of my father’s Kingdom, he has sent them after us clearly, this has transpired quicker than I would have liked, he likely wants the sword.”
The Golden Band and the Princess unsheathed their own swords, much smaller than Springle’s, but on the grand scheme of swords in general at least two of the guards held great-swords, large for a normal sword, and the other two held swords for closer and faster combat. The Princess’ sword was custom made, very slender and quite small, a graceful sword for those who could flow with a combat rhythm in battle, which required much skill. Knot himself had his bow out, with an arrow nocked.
“You lot hold back,” said Springle, “I should be able to take them all on.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t done that in a couple centuries at least,” said the Princess in a panicked voice.
“I think so. I mean you can fight as well if you want, but just make sure to keep out of my way, I don’t know what might come over me while using this sword.”
The Princess nodded, “we’ll go around to flank them while you distract them,” she ordered the Golden Band and Knot with her.
Springle stood staring down on the royal calvary, they were about to breach into the forest, right towards him. Just as they were about to trample over him Springle ran forth and bashed his shoulder, covered in his thick golden armour, into the chest of the lead horse, Springle was pushed back slightly as the ground beneath his feet gave way, but the horse and rider itself tumbled right over Springle crashing down hard behind him, that had used up a lot of his energy, perhaps not the best idea he thought. He then started fighting the others with his sword.
The men on the horses begun dismounting clumsily and unsheathing their swords, they had been taken quite by surprise. Springle quickly slashed two of them, sending them screaming in agony back, the gemstone on the pommel of his sword started glowing, but not green, this time it was a pinkish hue beginning to turn towards blood red.
The men begun trying to encircle him, in an attempt to overwhelm Springle from all sides, but he remembered the green critters trying similar tactics before. Springle merely kept to the middle of the circle, not choosing to engage unless they came first, he wasn’t about to let them tire him out by having to go after them first. One of the men ordered several others to charge at Springle, two came from behind and several more from the front, Springle swung his sword around in a complete circle, completely cutting several of them in two halves, others had been hit to the ground but were still alive, one of them had managed to duck his sword and got in close to Springle.
He was clearly trying to keep close, as it was awkward for Springle to move such a cumbersome sword effectively at such close range, the soldier swung his sword but Springle caught it in his gauntleted glove and yanked it from the soldier’s hand and then bashed him hard on the head, causing him to fall to the ground motionless. During this fight other soldiers had already taken the opportunity to close in, attempting to find spaces in-between Springle’s armour to stab at him, one of them was successful, causing Springle to grunt and whirl around, the side of Springle’s sword bashing into the soldier who’d done it, he heard a crunch of broken bones and screaming.
Springle was starting to get tired, and he knew why, his sprite level was low, he needed it for his extraordinary powers, he had plenty of sprites when fighting the green critter camp. Springle attempted to lean down and extract sprites from some of those already dead, but the other soldiers purposely kept him occupied from doing such a thing, he felt several more soldiers stab through gaps in his armour. The Princess was right, he wasn’t in the correct state of mind to take all of these on, especially not with such a low sprite count. It had been a long time since he last did it, and how did he know that all wasn’t just luck? Things were different then, and he also wasn’t afraid of the sword like he was now.
Springle was lucky he was a bulky and hardened man, otherwise he’d likely already be down by now. He swung around a couple more times, his sword hit some of the soldiers, but his strength was weak, the sword was being kept back by their armour due to this weakening and his sword was far too bulky to try and find gaps in their armour. He found himself getting breathless and stiffer as he continued to flail around at the soldiers surrounding him, they were trying to get him to fall down now.
Springle was almost about to do just that, but then out of nowhere an arrow pierced right through a gap in one of the soldier’s helmets with great precision, killing him instantly, and then there was yelling, the Princess, her Golden Band and Knot had finally flanked around, the soldiers surrounding Springle backed away from him to fight the others. That’s when Springle fell to the ground, he slowly started sliding himself over to a nearby corpse… if he could just get the sprites from it… but his armour felt so heavy, had it always been this heavy? He wanted to give up, his body wanted to rest, it was so much effort now, every single move he made, it felt like the armour was crushing him to death, but he kept shuffling himself along the ground, inch by inch amongst the chaos of the fighting.
He finally reached the body and placed his hand on the corpse and felt the familiar rush of sprites entering his body, he felt strong again and his armour felt light. He stood up with his sword in hand, and joined the fight, quickly felling two soldiers with a single swing. He was still unable to summon the full power of his sword though, he knew it must be because he no longer had trust in his sword like he once did, that was going to be problematic.
Although the royal soldiers had once again been taken by surprise there was still a lot of them, far outnumbering them, and so without Springle able to fully use his amazing abilities they were in trouble, and begun slowly getting pushed back again. The princess’ fighting was indeed graceful for a time, she flowed among them like shallow water flowing among pebbles along a stream, there was a certain serenity to those movements, and she took down several soldiers, but as the fight went on and the odds turned against them once again, her fighting became rougher and more panicked, Springle seeing the danger she was in came to her aid, decapitating several soldiers with his sword, and they fought side by side.
Knot had been shooting arrows at distance, which was a great help in felling a number of the soldiers, but he had seemingly run out of arrows now, as no more flew in. Springle had to acknowledge though, knowing the bow himself, that Knot was very skilled with it, probably better than himself.
They kept on fighting, it felt like it was all over now, and that feeling hardened as two of the Princess’ Golden Band fell to the mob, the Princess became distraught at this. Springle didn’t know what to do, he debated over grabbing the Princess and just trying to run away from certain death or if they should just fall here. Maybe this whole plan was folly from the beginning? In a last desperate hope, Springle attempted to force himself to trust in his sword, to try and summon its extraordinary power, but no matter how hard he tried, which wasn’t easy while simultaneously fighting, it wasn’t good enough, nothing happened.
As Springle was about ready to be at peace dying in the forest alongside the Princess, something amazing did happen, down from the sky a massive lightning bolt struck the ground among the group of royal soldiers fighting them, screams raised and then died and the force of the impact knocked them all back and then down hard on to the ground. Springle looked up and among them was a welcoming sight, Dracomeer stood there, a blue hue around him, and the royal soldiers all smoking and dead, the trees nearby had also been damaged and were alight. Springle sighed a great relief.
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