Brigit's Flame -- "Besieged"
Prompt: "besieged"
Word Count: 894
Warnings: Lord of the Rings influence?, mild violence
Summary: Here they come.
Author's Note: It's eltea's backyard. If you were wondering. Originally here.
BESIEGED
Sir Jonathan Fenweather paced the battlement, the broad heels of his boots rapping smartly on the flagstones, and gazed grimly over the crenellations at the approaching army. His hand, sun-browned skin overrun with an intricate network of interconnected scars, tightened on the worn grip of his sword handle, the leather accommodating his blunt fingers like a familiar glove.
Beldrin, the young flutist in the archer corps, looked up as Jonathan strode by. The boy tapped his narrow chin compulsively with the fletching of an arrow, his eyes wide and bright, illuminated from within by the hazy glow of an immovable unease.
“Do we even have a hope?” he asked.
Jonathan couldn’t muster up the caliber of glare he wanted, the sort that would quell the mutinous despair stirring into life in the quickening hearts of the men along the wall.
“Hope?” he repeated. “Of course we’ve got hope. They can’t kill that.”
He neglected to mention that it was the only thing they had.
-
Natalie Forbes blew lightly on the surface of her tea. Ripples chased each other across the mug, her hands leaching warmth from the glazed ceramic sides, and she shifted, the better to cradle the phone between her shoulder and her ear, as she glanced out the sliding glass door.
“We got Jon one of those fort playhouses with a slide,” she told Rebecca idly, watching the wind flirt with the red fabric of the banner they’d secured on the top. “He and Will were setting it up all weekend, and Jon just loves it to death.”
She sipped at her tea.
“Hm? Oh, I don’t know. Castle, probably. He’s always building sofa forts and asking to play castle when he’s in here.”
-
Jonathan’s fingers clenched around the edge of the parapet, the pressure bleaching his knuckles, the jagged stone gnawing in vain at his calloused palms. The pounding of his pulse in his ears marked the progression of the seconds as they paraded past in single file, inevitability drawing mercilessly nearer.
The boys whispered prayers so fast that the words blurred together, but the veterans merely watched-watched, and waited, and saved their breath.
Jonathan tried to remember that the endless lines of men on the ground below were just that-men. Human beings, flesh and blood, susceptible to the same frailties and deaths as he. Despite their deliberately tarnished armor, despite the black paint that made their faces melt into the night, they were only men.
And then those men crossed an invisible line, and a shrill voice rose over the thudding of their boots on the arid ground-a cry that sent the first wave of arrows arcing into the ordered oblivion ranks. The cruel points bit through chinks in armor, through imperfect chain mail, through susceptible flesh, and bodies tumbled heedlessly.
An answering hiss heralded the reciprocal onslaught, and Jonathan dropped shamelessly to one knee, ducking beneath the hungry projectiles. Better undignified than dead.
Over the rumble of the siege towers, the clanking of armor plates, and the groans of the wounded, Jonathan heard the ladders slam into the wall.
Here they come.
Scabbard undulating wildly with his stride, he raced towards the spot, reaching the first ladder, bracing his boots against the stones, clasping his hands around the twin wooden poles, and pushing as hard as he could manage, as hard as his straining muscles would permit. He gritted his teeth, sweat prickling on his forehead, the soles of his boots beginning to slide-and then the balance shifted, and he flung the thing away, its momentum and the weight of the enemies scrambling up the rungs carrying it heavily to the ground.
There were a dozen more.
Boots slamming against the stones in time with his laboring heart, Jonathan scrambled to the next, planting his feet, one of the archers joining him this time as they sought to change the fragile balance just enough-
This ladder, too, toppled to the distant dust, just as the most enterprising climbers surmounted the others.
An archer screamed, feeding the insatiable pandemonium, and Jonathan saw Beldrin thrust his knife into the throat of an attacker wielding two short swords. A living shadow with halberd in hand raised it high, primed for plunging into the vulnerable juncture between Jonathan’s neck and shoulder, the oily painted darkness of his face cracking for a slash of a yellow grin. Whirling, Jonathan buried his blade in his adversary’s belly and twisted viciously, touched by a grim and distant satisfaction as the halberd slipped from numbing hands.
Jerking his weapon free, he spun on his heel in time to guide it, gleaming, towards another grimacing demon materializing in the night-
-
Natalie drew the sliding door partway open. “Sweetheart,” she called, “it’s lunchtime.”
Jon, valiantly battling imaginary foes, paused and blinked at her as if roused suddenly from a vivid dream. Then he dropped the dowel rod she’d given him to the crackling leaves scattered over the deck and scampered up the stairs, cheeks flushed.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked brightly.
Natalie was tempted to reply with, The hearts of your enemies, but if Jon was anything like his father-who was a novelist and a chronic daydreamer of epic proportions-he didn’t need the encouragement.
“Whatever you like, dear,” she said instead, ushering him in. “Are you having fun with the playhouse?”
Jon beamed.
Word Count: 894
Warnings: Lord of the Rings influence?, mild violence
Summary: Here they come.
Author's Note: It's eltea's backyard. If you were wondering. Originally here.
BESIEGED
Sir Jonathan Fenweather paced the battlement, the broad heels of his boots rapping smartly on the flagstones, and gazed grimly over the crenellations at the approaching army. His hand, sun-browned skin overrun with an intricate network of interconnected scars, tightened on the worn grip of his sword handle, the leather accommodating his blunt fingers like a familiar glove.
Beldrin, the young flutist in the archer corps, looked up as Jonathan strode by. The boy tapped his narrow chin compulsively with the fletching of an arrow, his eyes wide and bright, illuminated from within by the hazy glow of an immovable unease.
“Do we even have a hope?” he asked.
Jonathan couldn’t muster up the caliber of glare he wanted, the sort that would quell the mutinous despair stirring into life in the quickening hearts of the men along the wall.
“Hope?” he repeated. “Of course we’ve got hope. They can’t kill that.”
He neglected to mention that it was the only thing they had.
-
Natalie Forbes blew lightly on the surface of her tea. Ripples chased each other across the mug, her hands leaching warmth from the glazed ceramic sides, and she shifted, the better to cradle the phone between her shoulder and her ear, as she glanced out the sliding glass door.
“We got Jon one of those fort playhouses with a slide,” she told Rebecca idly, watching the wind flirt with the red fabric of the banner they’d secured on the top. “He and Will were setting it up all weekend, and Jon just loves it to death.”
She sipped at her tea.
“Hm? Oh, I don’t know. Castle, probably. He’s always building sofa forts and asking to play castle when he’s in here.”
-
Jonathan’s fingers clenched around the edge of the parapet, the pressure bleaching his knuckles, the jagged stone gnawing in vain at his calloused palms. The pounding of his pulse in his ears marked the progression of the seconds as they paraded past in single file, inevitability drawing mercilessly nearer.
The boys whispered prayers so fast that the words blurred together, but the veterans merely watched-watched, and waited, and saved their breath.
Jonathan tried to remember that the endless lines of men on the ground below were just that-men. Human beings, flesh and blood, susceptible to the same frailties and deaths as he. Despite their deliberately tarnished armor, despite the black paint that made their faces melt into the night, they were only men.
And then those men crossed an invisible line, and a shrill voice rose over the thudding of their boots on the arid ground-a cry that sent the first wave of arrows arcing into the ordered oblivion ranks. The cruel points bit through chinks in armor, through imperfect chain mail, through susceptible flesh, and bodies tumbled heedlessly.
An answering hiss heralded the reciprocal onslaught, and Jonathan dropped shamelessly to one knee, ducking beneath the hungry projectiles. Better undignified than dead.
Over the rumble of the siege towers, the clanking of armor plates, and the groans of the wounded, Jonathan heard the ladders slam into the wall.
Here they come.
Scabbard undulating wildly with his stride, he raced towards the spot, reaching the first ladder, bracing his boots against the stones, clasping his hands around the twin wooden poles, and pushing as hard as he could manage, as hard as his straining muscles would permit. He gritted his teeth, sweat prickling on his forehead, the soles of his boots beginning to slide-and then the balance shifted, and he flung the thing away, its momentum and the weight of the enemies scrambling up the rungs carrying it heavily to the ground.
There were a dozen more.
Boots slamming against the stones in time with his laboring heart, Jonathan scrambled to the next, planting his feet, one of the archers joining him this time as they sought to change the fragile balance just enough-
This ladder, too, toppled to the distant dust, just as the most enterprising climbers surmounted the others.
An archer screamed, feeding the insatiable pandemonium, and Jonathan saw Beldrin thrust his knife into the throat of an attacker wielding two short swords. A living shadow with halberd in hand raised it high, primed for plunging into the vulnerable juncture between Jonathan’s neck and shoulder, the oily painted darkness of his face cracking for a slash of a yellow grin. Whirling, Jonathan buried his blade in his adversary’s belly and twisted viciously, touched by a grim and distant satisfaction as the halberd slipped from numbing hands.
Jerking his weapon free, he spun on his heel in time to guide it, gleaming, towards another grimacing demon materializing in the night-
-
Natalie drew the sliding door partway open. “Sweetheart,” she called, “it’s lunchtime.”
Jon, valiantly battling imaginary foes, paused and blinked at her as if roused suddenly from a vivid dream. Then he dropped the dowel rod she’d given him to the crackling leaves scattered over the deck and scampered up the stairs, cheeks flushed.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked brightly.
Natalie was tempted to reply with, The hearts of your enemies, but if Jon was anything like his father-who was a novelist and a chronic daydreamer of epic proportions-he didn’t need the encouragement.
“Whatever you like, dear,” she said instead, ushering him in. “Are you having fun with the playhouse?”
Jon beamed.