Chapter 10

Seeing the look on everyone’s faces after his words inspired Rex, ‘Maybe it’ll go all as planned,’ he thought to himself, feeling a little glimmer of hope, mixed in with the sudden drain of slight weariness and ‘Hungry? I’m about to go and do something quite stupid, and I’m feeling hungry?’ he asked himself, a little confused, realising he had skipped breakfast and it was nearing noon now.

The look of confusion on Rex’s face drew Markus’s attention, “I was wondering when you would want to eat something, a strong body requires fuel, never forget to eat, drink water and breathe, you cannot fight for long without them,” he smiled, reaching into his pocket, producing a small pouch, once it was opened, Rex’s nose filled with the smell of something delightful.

“You had jerky this whole time?” Rex asked in an exaggerated tone, taking the few pieces Markus offered gladly, placing a whole piece in his mouth, chewing happily and groaning at the amazing flavour bursting in his mouth, “My god this is so good, what is the meat?”

“If you make it through your assault, I will tell you then,” Markus winked, popping a piece of the cured meat into his mouth and winking, pushing the pouch back into his breast pocket under his chest armour, slowly drawing in a deep breath as he turned away, joining Ley for the line breaking assault.

“You had better f**king make it back to us,” Lacey said, with Marcia, Minet and Lizz all standing in a semi-circle, facing Rex nodding, all in agreement.

“I will,” Rex said quietly, smiling at them with his usual reassuring bravado. He was getting good at it, using it when facing the gigantic tentaculum, even though deep inside he felt the tiny niggling feeling that he might be biting off more than he could chew this time.

“Come sweetness, the soldiers are nearly ready to begin their push so we can destroy our enemies,” Sküülen said in, what sounded like to Rex, a slightly excited voice.

Stepping forward and giving each woman a kiss on each of their foreheads, Rex turned away, faced the battlefield, and drew his sword which still seemed to shimmer, even with the fact that Sküülen was no longer inside of it, and steeled himself.

Marcia flicked her leg over the saddle on Chook’s back, taking flight to regroup with her sky army with renewed vigour since losing Ulna, ‘We will have time to have our final goodbyes for Ulna after the battle, I promise you,’ Rex said through their bond, getting the feelings of love and admiration near tear his mind apart in response, from what he was sure was all women at once.

After a few loud shouts, Rex could see Markus and Ley begin to start separating the strong shielded royal guard soldiers into a V-shaped wedge a few men behind the front line, Ley looked up at Rex, signalling he was ready to go, reaching out through their bond, ‘Marcia, is everything in order?’

‘We will be there for our part of the assault,’ Marcia replied, her voice coming through quite quiet, sounding like she was a fair distance away.

‘Odd, but ok, time to show everyone you're a Magnus,’ he told himself, closing his eyes and taking in deep breaths, trying to do his best to still his sword hand that was shaking slightly.

‘We will make it through this,’ Fafnir said, reassuring in his usual loud growling voice, ‘Show them what it means to cross a warrior soul bound with a dragon.’

Once Rex nodded, Ley shouted a loud command, and the shielded royal guard, mixed in with a few treasury Bohl, Rex was sure he could even see Charr, his view was impeded with the helmets covering the sides of their faces so he was not sure if it was him, charge the weakened line of Telagus’s army, the enemy seemingly able to hold them off for a split second, before the sheer will and ferocity of the soldiers under Markus’s and Ley’s command started to quickly make strides cutting a hole through, it was an awesome strategy Rex thought, the Bohl were right behind the shielded warriors, so with their height and range with spears they were taking down enemies over four paces away from the shields, a few lucky arrows or fireballs finding gaps in the shielded warriors who were skilfully moving and blocking blows and projectiles alike, taking a few Bohl down, but the push was successful, they had made a huge gap in the enemies front lines, giving Rex and Sküülen space to run through the middle of them, nodding at Ley and Markus admirably as he passed.

“Form up for a spring maneuver,” Ley roared as Rex and Sküülen came close, the Bohl at the tip of the V-wedge pushing in front of the shielded warriors, three men turning and placing their shields over their knees and shoulders, kneeling low.

“They haven’t punched the whole way through, they want to vault us over the remaining soldiers,” Sküülen said, her joy and excitement leeching through over eagerly, Rex could tell this whole battle for fun and exciting for her, seeing the kneeling shielded soldiers watching them coming intently, Rex swore under his breath.

Adapt, improvise, overcome, Fafnir’s words sprang back into Rex’s mind as they approached, leaping a few feet from the ground, placing one foot on the shielded soldier, Sküülen doing the same, as their weight had transferred onto the soldier, he stood suddenly, roaring loudly as he strained with the added weight from Rex and with a little boost of his own, Rex, followed closely by Sküülen soared over the remaining line of soldiers, he had put a little too much spring into the vault, realising he was travelling further than he wanted, much further.

‘F**k me, I’m going to land right on him,’ Rex swore, seeing he was going to crash land right on top of a troll warrior that had its back turned to him.

Gritting his teeth and bringing his sword back behind him, so he did not skewer himself, rex braced for impact, the familiar slap of colliding sounding shortly after, the impact almost took his breath away, ‘Shit this thing is solid’ he said, barely rocking the surprised troll forward a few steps.

As he fell to the side, he threw his sword arm out in a sweeping motion, the edge of the blade slicing cleanly across the back side of the troll's neck, hitting the bone of the spine but not continuing any further. Rex noticed he must not have had enough force the separate the spinal bones to relieve the troll of its head, so he angled his wrist a little to try and attempt to cut something important in the softer front part of its neck, he wasn’t sure he hit anything important as he continued on his path, greeting the ground hard off balance.

Rex’s ears buzzed and black spots clouded his vision, Sküülen was already up and dashing around, slashing at a troll that had seen her land, a lot more gracefully than Rex, shaking his head to try and help clear his vision, he could hear a loud roar from behind him, his firm grip returning he rolled forwards from instinct, a loud thumping sound exploding a second after his body rolled forward, turning to face his assailant, he saw the troll he had crashed into was removing his heavy tree trunk club one-handed from a deep indentation in the ground where he was standing not a second ago, his other hand gripping a cut on the side of its neck, green blood seeping through the gaps in its fingers, the slash was deep enough to eventually drain the creature of its blood but shallow enough to do it slower than he would have liked.

‘Marcia where are you?’ he asked through their bond, searching the skies for the tell-tale sign of skylarks.

‘Watch what is in front of you!’ Fafnir roared, drawing his attention back to the troll who had swung its club at him again, causing Rex to roll to the side to dodge another overhead slam of its weapon, the ongoing commotion of Sküülen and Rex fighting trolls drew the attention of the others of their group.

“F**k, they have seen us,” Rex sighed, cutting the troll's arm as it swung and missed another time, it roaring loudly in pain, dropping its weapon and recoiling, taking its huge hand from its neck and placing it on the large fresh gash on its forearm, a huge gush of blood flowing out from its neck once it removed its hand.

The sudden loss of blood caused the troll to totter from side to side, Rex could tell it was dying, seeing its eyes become unfocused, and falling to one knee, desperately clutching its neck once more, the trolls behind it had collected their weapons and were now lumbering to their position.

As the troll took its final breaths, it pointed at Rex and let out a mighty roar, falling forward, laying their face down, lifeless.

‘Rex, we are in trouble,’ Fafnir said.

‘No shit, look at the rest of them coming,’ Rex replied, a little irritated.

‘That was the son of the troll king, the arm banding you cut looked familiar to me, once the trolls see this, they will hunt you with renewed strength, whatever general Marcia does will not deter them from their new target, you.’