Chapter 9

“You’re f**king kidding. Tell me you’re joking,” Lacey said, her face contorted with a frown.

“If Rex says he is charging the necromancers with Sküülen, I’m inclined to believe him,” Markus said with a smile and one raised eyebrow, Ley looking through the scores of soldiers and beasts they would have to make it through to get there.

“That has to be a stupider idea than staying to fight that tentaculum with Raz,” Minet sighed, shaking her head, Ley and Markus both looked at each other quickly with quizzical looks, Ley turning back to the battlefield.

“My guess is at least 400 with a distance of 1000 paces,” Ley said suddenly, everyone turning to look at him, “not the best odds, but doable.”

Looking at where he was, Rex knew he was talking about his estimate of how many stood between them and the necromancers, “That’s a lot,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Then you have blackguards to contend with before reaching the necromancers,” he added in, pointing to a line of soldiers that were watching the battle intently, every one of them had matte black armour, a sword on their hip and a medium-sized shield with a white rams skull emblem in the middle of it, they were occasionally throwing up a shield to block an arrow or fireball directed to their charge, “They are the elite of the fae, magic using soldiers, skilled in combat with either.”

‘Maybe this isn’t the best idea after all,’ Rex thought to himself, the odds of failure were growing with each new piece of news, he knew the only reason Telagus was getting the upper hand was because of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of soldiers, and the necromancers had an endless supply of corpses to use to bolster Telagus.

‘A bad plan can still bear fruit, improvise, adapt and you can overcome any obstacles,’ Fafnir said.

Scoffing loudly, Rex looked up at the group, “it’s the best we have, they need to be stopped and any other attempt seems to be failing, Sküülen, I saw that blink thing you were doing before, can you do it with two people?”

“In theory sweetness, it is possible, has it been tried? Yes, only one time, I open a short tear in the veil between this world and the beyond and leap through, I miscalculated on that occasion and only half of my master came through the other side, I was sorely disappointed, he was most handsome,” Sküülen said, he eyes fading out of focus like she was remembering it.

“That’s gross and magnificent magic at the same time,” Lizz said with a shudder.

“Hardly gross, but back to the topic at hand, my range will be greatly shortened, and the effort will no doubt leave me weakened for a short time afterward, my advice, use it sparingly, very sparingly,” Sküülen said.

“If you’re thinking of blinking through the blackguard soldiers, I would advise against it, I do not see the rest of their battalion, which tells me they may be behind the shield, encircling you once inside,” Ley said, straining his eyes while looking at the group of necromancers, who had now just created a new group of undead to re-join the battle.

‘There goes that idea,’ Rex sighed, quickly jumping at a sharp pain on the back of his hand, Minet, Lacey and Lizz also jolting sharply at the suddenness of it, ‘What in the world was that about?’ Rex asked himself turning his hand over to look, his eyes widening, since bonding with Chook, the skylark he had saved and named him promptly after Kealy asked about the ‘overgrown chicken’ he had in his room that time, he had sported a very faint symbol in the middle of the back of his hand, four thick bands only measuring half an inch long each in the direction of his thumb to the edge of his palm, but now it had changed, it now had three more running the opposite direction from fingers to wrist, a little thinner than his own ‘What is this?’

Not mere seconds later, a mixture of happiness, joy, sadness and loss all mixed together slammed into the group, causing them all to look for the source, Rex knew it could only be one person, he looked over to Marcia, who was now standing and hugging Chook. He could see tears streaming down her face, ‘What is going on over there and why has my bonding symbol changed?” the thought he had was answered shortly after, as Marcia removed her skylark saddle from Ulna, to what Rex could tell, said a prayer for skylark, placing it onto Chook’s back, after a few quick adjustments for the difference in size of birds, looked over the Rex, even with her dirty face that had streaks from the tears that had fallen down her cheeks, she was smiling, seemingly happy once more, looking down at his hand, a thought creeped into his mind, ‘Had she also somehow bonded with Chook as well?’ he remembered a few of Marcia’s lessons on skylarks, most important being a skylark cannot be ridden by anyone except its bonded, it would simply ignore any and all orders given to it and buck off the rider when they attempted to mount, but in this case, Chook looked almost happy when Marcia put her foot into one bridle, easily throwing her other leg over the saddle and into the other bridle, and after inhaling a large breath, whistled, causing Chook to obey instantly, crouching before extending and flapping his large wings, lifting only a few feet off the ground before diving toward Rex, landing softly while hopping forward a few steps to get closer, craning its head over when close to Rex, chirping softly in greeting as it always did.

“Did you…” Rex started to say, being stopped suddenly mid-sentence by Marcia leaping from the saddle, crashing hard into him, wrapping her hands around his upper body as she landed on him, the force from the impact causing him to fall onto his back.

“It’s unbelievable,” Marcia whispered between short sobs, “utterly unf**kingbelievable for a skylark to bond with two people simultaneously, you truly are someone special.”

“I didn’t do anything though,” Rex said, half chuckling, he was laying flat on his back with Marcia on top of him, with the entire group now watching wide-eyed at what had just happened.

“No time for playfulness my sweet,” Sküülen said, breaking the silence, “We have some stupidity to attend to first.”

Standing up after noticing everyone now looking at her, mainly Markus, who had a smile from ear to ear, and Ley, who looked like his jaw was about to keep opening until it reached the ground, brushing the dirt from her already blood-stained and dirty armour, she looked at them with her usual hard, sharp expression returning, “Oh shut up, what is she talking about with stupidity to attend to Rex?” she asked looking up and him.

“Rex the idiot plans to try and assault the necromancers with her help to stop the constant flow of undead,” Lacey said, using her thumb to point toward the area where the necromancers were.

“Hmpf, like f**k you are, you’ll die for sure, even with her help, what can we do to help?” Marcia said, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest, just under where her breasts were.

Groaning loudly before speaking, “How about you help win this thing?” Rex replied with a cheeky smile.

“I may have an idea,” Ley said, everyone turning to face him while he stood there silently.

After a tense few seconds, Marcia cleared her throat, looking skyward, “Yep, not like we are losing daylight or anything while you sleep standing up.”

“Oh sorry,” Ley replied with a smile, “Was lost in thought for a moment.”

“No shit.”

“Thank you Marcia my dear, now, as I was saying earlier, I could take a squad of Rex’s royal guard and batter through that line there that is failing, giving him enough space with barely any resistance to push through onto the line of trolls back there that are regrouping, Marcia with her sky army can assault them keeping them busy enough they should almost be invisible, troll eyesight is terrible at the best of times and quite tunnel-visioned, should be pretty close to a straight through to the blackguards, where Rex and his friend can work their magic,” Ley said, using his flattened hand sideways to point at places on the battlefield while speaking.

 Rex had to admit, it sounded like a good plan indeed, with their help it would conserve a lot of Rex and Sküülen’s time and energy, but one thing struck him, “If you push far enough in, that might leave you open to a Rufus pincer move, cutting you off from everyone else.” At the mention of the battlefield manoeuvre, Marcia, Ley and Markus all raised their eyebrows at him, “Yeah, I know shit, sometimes,” he smiled.

“Leave that to us,” Markus reassured him, giving him a quick pat on the shoulder, “it will not take long to make the necessary preparations, so if you have a few words to say, now is the time.”

With everyone looking at him, Rex froze up a little, he had never had to give words of encouragement to people about to risk their lives for him.

‘Choose your words carefully young one, words can build, and destroy,’ Fafnir said.

“In preparing for a fight with doomed odds, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable,” Rex said after taking a deep breath in, getting smiles from the entire group, Ley and Markus both nodding slowly at the same time.

‘Well said young one.’