A new fantasy piece.

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Hope you like it. Happy Christmas, everyone!

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The calm of the night was shattered, along with a section of palisade wall, by a fiery explosion. The blast showered the bandit encampment with burning debris, small fires starting in a score of places. Several men standing by the wall were incinerated, and a nearby watch tower was knocked over.

Cyrus Bell strode through the breach, a shimmering figure wrapped in magical wards. Several archers loosed their shafts, which were deflected by Cyrus' spectral armor. He raised his right hand, fingers fanned out. Little meteors streaked out, striking the archers down. His left hand, index and little fingers forked, pointed towards a squad of men rushing toward the breach. A fireball exploded in their midst, hurling bodies outward.

A screaming brute charged him, hair and clothing aflame, brandishing an iron-shod club. Cyrus drew his rapier, ducking a blow that would have split his head like a rotted fruit. The giant raised his club overhead, and Cyrus' thrust took him in the throat. The club came down, clipping Cyrus' left shoulder and numbing his arm, then the brute flopped face-down into the dusty soil.

Massaging his sore shoulder, Cyrus turned to see a squad of Imarri infantry moving toward him, another advancing through the breach. A grizzled veteran sergeant discharged his crossbow, felling a running bandit, and saluted. "Sweep through the camp, Sergeant. Leave no one alive," ordered Cyrus.

"Consider them dead," answered the man, and led his men off.

Cyrus "hung" a pair of spells on himself, the first a globe that shielded him from hostile magics, the second boosting his speed and reaction time. He turned back to his objective, a large round tent at the center of the encampment. Four men, supported by a mage, charged toward him. His attention focused on the mage, whose face turned fearful as his spells contacted Cyrus' protective globe for no effect. Cyrus launched more meteors, the quadruple impacts flinging the mage's corpse backward in a boneless tumble. Then the four warriors were on him.

The first took Cyrus' rapier in the gut, folding around it and tearing it out of his grasp. This left him off-balance, and the second man's sword slashed through his mage armor, tearing a nasty gash in Cyrus' chest. Cyrus backpedaled, flinging his arms up. Flame jetted from his outspread fingers. His attacker fell back, hands to his burned face. Cyrus snatched up the first man's warhammer and swung it two-handed. The spike punched through the man's helmet with a metallic "thunk", taking the second one out of the fight. The remaining two moved apart, attempting to flank the warrior-mage. Cyrus pulled his rapier out of the corpse and drove toward the right-most man, beating him back with a flurry of attacks. The fighter backed up and tripped over a corpse, allowing Cyrus to finish him off.

A fiery line of pain across his back drove Cyrus to his knees. The last man had been faster than he anticipated. He tried to turn, to parry the incoming attack, knowing it would be too slow, knowing that he was about to die. He heard a whistling sound, and waited for darkness. The man fell face-down beside him, an iron quarrel protruding from between his shoulders.

Cyrus turned to see the Imarri sergeant he'd spoken to earlier. The veteran raised his crossbow in salute, then disappeared in the swirl of battle. Sitting back on his ankles, a relieved Cyrus took a few calming breaths, and a healing potion stilled the pain from his chest and back wounds.

He stood, shaking off dizziness brought on by the healing potion's narcotic effects, and moved warily toward the tent. The mage's body was still smoldering, and Cyrus stepped over it and into the tent. The protection globe and quickness spells had dropped, those being good for a quick fight, not a long battle. His spectral armor and "buffs", spells that augmented his strength, agility, and force of will, were still active, and sometimes those were enough of an edge in a fight.

A lone warrior stood in the center of the tent. A voluminous cloak concealed its form, but Cyrus could see outlines of heavy armor. Its face was hidden under a bat-winged helm, and the longsword it held, point down, hands resting on the pommel, looked sharp and deadly. Cyrus brought his own blade up in a defensive position.

"Cyrus Bell," spoke the warrior, its helm giving the voice a deep echoing quality. "Are you prepared to die this day?"

"Not by your hand," answered Cyrus. "I could roast you in your armor with a thought."

"I will cut off your puny manhood and feed it to my dogs!" shouted the other, readying its blade.

"I will cut out your heart and feed it to you!" was the retort.

The warrior let out a battle-roar and charged forward. Cyrus loosed an answering shout, and ran forward as well. They crashed together, blades dropping to the ground, arms locking about each other's bodies. "Hey, watch those wings!" yelped Cyrus.

The winged helm clanked to the ground. Rienne Tremaine shook out her pale blond hair and kissed Cyrus passionately, pale green eyes sparkling. "What took so long?" she asked once their lips parted. "The Cyrus Bell I know would have leveled this camp single-handedly in half the time.

"And without getting a scratch on him," she added, fingers playfully brushing across the healed wound on his chest.

"It's all those late nights with you, lovely Rienne. I have precious little strength left after..."

"Not in the last two weeks!" she flared. "Who's been afield with Garrett-the-so-called-Bandit-King so that we could track his
raids and find where his camp was! Certainly not you!"

Cyrus winced. Her stroking had turned to jabbing fingers to emphasize her words. "Speaking of His Highness, umm, where is he?"

A half-smile was on her lips as she turned to indicate an unconscious man, bound hand and foot, at the back of the tent. "He became...excited when you took the wall down. It was a simple thing to...settle him down."

The mage walked over and prodded the bandit with a toe. "So this is the man..."

Rienne nodded. "The Xhornite Coalition was paying him rather well to disrupt our caravans to the Free Cities."

"How well?" Cyrus looked up as a trio of Imarri troopers entered the tent. He pointed down at the "Bandit King", then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. The troopers grabbed the man and carried him out of the tent.

The sergeant walked in, saluted, and reported, "The camp has been cleansed, Captain Bell. Orders?"

"Secure the prisoner. Remove anything of value. We will fire the rest when we withdraw. Fifteen minutes, Sergeant Malthus."

"Sir. My respects, Captain Tremaine." Malthus left to carry out his orders.

"Come on, let me show you his treasury. Then you can take me back to the Academy where I can take a PROPER bath!" The half-smile was still on Rienne's face as she started to walk out of the tent.

"And perhaps I can scrub your back," quipped Cyrus, following her. "And your front..."

"In your fondest dreams, mageling..."

"Ahh, Rienne...about what you said earlier. The manhood thing. Puny?"

"Figure of speech, Cyrus dear. I know better."

They walked out of the tent, laughing, into the fire-shot night.

 

a fun read, and the little surprise halfway really brings a nice mood change.

 

Thank you...

This one was my initial effort, featuring the same characters:

http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/12/489.html

 

Very nice, the surprise was a welcome one so all I can say is, keep it coming

 

Oh yes, definitely... Enjoyed that a lot, hoping very much there'll be another installment...
If this is NaNo, does that mean it'll end up a novel?
/me is DESPERATELY short on good reads... And this was good.

 

It's a (pipe) dream I have. Assuming I can somehow gather together the disonnected dribs & drabs I've jotted down into something coherent...

Then I can try to sell it to someone...

 

Welcome to the club of dreamers! Good luck, anyhow. Loved it so far!