Chapter 10

There were many kinds of ambushes. The sword, having been the weapon of both the ambushed and the ambusher many times, was familiar with all of them. There was the targeted assassination, the kidnapping, the highway robbery, the alley mugging, the guerrilla skirmish, the slaughter, and so on. If forced to categorize, the sword might begin by dividing between ambushes which were planned and unplanned. A good highway robbery had an almost clockwork rhythm to its various parts, while a mugging could be as surprising to the mugger as it was to the victim.

As the dinosaur riders crashed through the dining hall window, heaving against the reins of their mounts to force them to halt, the sword would have bet this was much more the latter kind of ambush than the former.

The attackers were more lizardmen, wearing the same black canvas clothes as the one the sword had fought on the lower levels. The mounts were new, of course. Feathered lizards standing on two long legs, with short arms tucked in front, the riders crouched over their backs, steering with reins fixed to the beast’s mouths. The riders were all equipped with curved sabers, in contrast to the straight sword of the one the sword had fought earlier. There were nine of them, the leader at the front, and his sword glowed with a purple light, enhanced with magic of some kind.

They hesitated as they skidded to a halt, faced with a hall full of students. Their formation was ragged, several of them were far ahead of the others, clearly trying to regain control of their mounts.

Then the students started screaming, and the first saber was drawn with a melodious shing that made the sword close his eyes in pleasure.

When he opened them, the battle had already begun.

The mass of students had separated into several pieces. There were those engaged in heroic single combat with individual riders, made less single and less heroic by the sheer number of others doing exactly the same. There were the students who were beating hasty retreats, knocking over tables to create places of shelter. And there were the few small groups, trying to create a larger force to lead a sorty.

There were nine lizard riders, and three of them were too far ahead of the others, they looked to be in real trouble as the first wave of heroic duelists converged upon them with cries of “For the White Rose!” and “Arctic Ice Punch!”

The other six, headed by their leader, had formed a wedge, and were holding to it, so far fending off any major attacks.

“Stay safe,” Cadmarius said from behind them. “Stay put,” he added, as he slowly stepped over the salad bar, zipped up his jacket, and began to walk towards the nearest lone rider. If he said the name of the skill aloud, the sword didn’t hear him, but five columns of flame appeared in the air around him. As he reached the rider, fire balls poured from the columns, just barely missing the rider and lighting a nearby table on fire.

Arthur hopped over the bar.

“Hey! Cadmarius told us to stay!” The sword said.

Arthur didn’t even look back at him. “Oh come on, how can you possibly resist? This is going to be so fun.”

“Wait!” The sword said, but Arthur was already picking his away across the room towards the largest group of riders.

The sword looked around for someone to tell about this, but found there was no one. This was exactly the sort of situation he hated most, the moment when he most needed a wielder to take charge for him and just decide.

If he stayed here, he would be doing what Cadmarius asked, but he would be alone in the middle of a battlefield, which was already confusing enough. At least if he stayed with Arthur, who seemed to have a clear plan, someone would be deciding something. Even if Arthur wasn’t his wielder, it would at least give the sword some clear direction.

He clambered over the salad bar, then ducked as a bolt of purple lightning originating from the lizard captain’s glowing sword shot past him and struck the wall with a loud bang.

He found Arthur crouched over a student huddled behind one of the upturned tables, bleeding from a wound on their shoulder. Arthur was humming to himself as he bound the wound with a clean strip of cloth he’d produced from his jacket pocket.

“Mind if I take this old blood?” He asked the student, who moaned as Arthur ripped some of his blood soaked shirt off.

“Thanks so much,” Arthur said, then continued to hum as he strolled along to another table, not far from the melee.

Which was progressing, although it was unclear that anyone was winning. Every few minutes it seemed a new student would rise and yell something like, “If we work together we can win! Charge on my signal!”

There had been several such charges, including a lone one from Haldar Brassbones, none of which had made the large group of riders do more than budge, or invite the occasional blast of lightning from the leader’s sword.

Arthur hefted a carving knife he’d apparently palmed from one of the other stations, and began to scratching into the bottom of the table he was now crouched behind.

“Isn’t this the life?” He asked, as around them yells and screams began once more, and the air crackled with fire and lightning. “Usually it’s so boring around here.”

“It is more interesting than homework,” the sword agreed, peering out over the top to confirm the battle had not gotten too close to them. He wasn’t sure what he would do if the one of the lizard riders attacked him. After all, he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to use his skills alone anymore.

But surely this was a time when that would be a good idea?

And yet what if he lost control again?

He didn’t know.

“And there’s all this free blood everywhere, which I didn’t even have to spill. Might even get a body by the time this is over!” Arthur dug deeper into the table, he was scratching a rough circle into existence, double ringed, with a four symbols spaced evenly in the gap between the rings.

“I thought [Demon Lords] didn’t need summoning circles.” The sword said.

“Oh, we don’t,” Arthur said agreeably. “It’s just more fun this way.” He finished scratching the final symbol, then wiped the bloody rag he’d taken from the wounded student into the center of the circle, leaving an uneven red-brown stain behind. “You know what the best part of all this is? When Cad grills me later, I can claim this was self-defense. Sapphire Summon.”

The ring glowed a brilliant blue, much deeper than the blue of status, and the red-brown stain disappeared.

“Come on out Serps,” Arthur said.

A demon emerged from the center of the circle. An imp, pointy eared, pot-bellied, red skinned, with bat wings that flapped unsteadily to keep the creature aloft. Around it’s distended belly was a blue manacle, with a chain leading from the manacle back into the center of the glowing circle with the spot of blood had been.

“My name,” the creature said, with a surprisingly deep voice that was somehow audible despite all the sounds of battle around them. “Is Lord Sir Serpenedos Vraim, Fifth Keeper of the Black Flame and Guardian of the Lost Ember of—oh, it’s you.”

Arthur twiddled his fingers at the little imp. “Long time no see Lord Sir Serps.”

The imp heaved a sigh. “Well? What do you want?” As a reluctant afterthought, he added, “Your Majesty?”

For a moment Arthur’s gleeful smile flickered. “My Lord will suffice,” he said quietly.

The imp burped. Even the sword could tell this was meant to be rude. “What do you want, My Lord?”

Arthur’s merriment returned, he cracked his knuckles, then waived at the melee around them. “Go raise some hell, would you Serps? The lizard cattle are the enemy. Harming human cattle is prohibited.”

The imp floated above the table for a moment, surveying the battlefield. “I am missing breakfast with my wives for this…food fight?”

“The danger will spice up your little love fest tonight,” Arthur said. He grabbed the glowing blue chain attached to the little imp, and heaved it in the direction of the nearest lizard.

The imp went flying, cursing something inaudible in their direction.

“You named your demon?” The sword asked, as the imp righted itself, then began to glow, a little crown of blue fire igniting above his head.

“They name themselves. Terrible taste, worse than our classmates” Arthur said, his attention totally fixed on the demon in front of him, his grin wide. “God this feels good. Look at the little fat turd go.”

The imp was diving at the lizard rider, moving much faster than the sword would have expected, dodging and weaving and using his stubby wings to make incredibly tight turns, while raining little balls of blue flame down on the lizard rider.

Compared to the havoc the sword had seen demons wreak in the past, it didn’t seem like much, but Arthur was clearly enormously pleased with himself. He supposed this was the kind of demon a very new [Demon Lord] could summon.

The imp seemed to be having some effect, the lizard rider was totally distracted, its focus now on the air above them, waving its saber in vain as it tried to catch the little imp.

The battle didn’t seem to be going well for the students. He saw many wounded students in not very good shelters, formed from overturned tables and chairs. Cadmarius was fighting two of the riders at once, but did not seem to be able to finish the fight.

Where were the teachers? Where was Ms. Lopez? Or the famous Night Patrol he had been told about, those students who were trained to deal with incursions from other worlds like this one.

The sword wanted to fight.

He couldn’t fight.

He looked around for something to do, anything to do, anywhere he could be useful. He saw a girl from his class stagger as she was grazed by one of the lightning blasts. She was one of the [aristocrat] girls. He didn’t know her name, but he saw her always at the side of the girl with amber eyes.

She was dragging herself to one side, but in the wrong direction, towards the fighting, not away. One of the riders was going to notice her.

It was all so obvious. Why wasn’t anyone stopping her, pointing her in the right direction?

Why wasn’t he?

“Where are you going?” Arthur asked, as the sword emerged from the table.

The sword had been calm this whole time, battle was interesting, but it wasn’t new or off-putting in the way that every normal day at Crossroads Academy seemed to be.

But he felt a new sense of focus as he stepped through the battle, dodging projectiles and friendly fire, and those interesting purple blasts of lightning from the lizard captain.

They were all just so slow, dodging really wasn’t hard at all.

He reached the girl, he still didn’t remember her name, and grabbed one of her arms. “Wrong way,” he said.

“Ow!” the girl said. “That hurts! Ow!”

The sword let go, her cries had caught the attention of one of the riders. They looked at the sword and saw a threat for some reason. They raised a crossbow, which the sword hadn’t seen them holding before, fired.

He parried, and the bolt went just to the side, though he felt the sting as it ripped into his skin.

“Come on, this way,” he told the girl, and began dragging her through the battlefield back to Arthur’s table.

When he reached Arthur he said, “I’ll go get more.” The other boy shrugged, “I mean, whatever gets you going, I guess,” and the sword went back out. Retrieving the wounded, of which there were already many, dodging and parrying as he did.

He managed to retrieve five more of his classmates before the bloodloss caught up to him again, and he collapsed somewhere between the table and his next target.

He woke to Cadmarius’ placid face. Everything was quiet. The battle was over. There seemed to be no one else in the wreck of the dining hall but himself and the chef. Cadmarius, he realized, always smelled of woodfire, even here, where he was far from his ovens.

“You really,” Cadmarius said, pulling the sword to his feet, “Need to learn how to parry with something besides your arms.”