Just Brochwel's Luck

It all went wrong the next morning, shortly after they set off, on a rocky hill with the occasional large tree.

With bandages wrapping his entire head including his ears, sounds reached Brochwel a little muffled. Not enough to make conversation difficult, but it quieted faint and distant noises. Like the thrumming of wings.

When he finally recognized it, Brochwel looked up to see a slender shape diving on them.

"Damn. Stay close. Odonaran inbound." Brochwel drew Cambadr from its scabbard.

"Close-together run?" said Tarquin, pointing ahead.

"No. Glue yourself on Silvester and Emma's left," Brochwel said as he guided the horse he and Tecca were riding to the other side. "Show me that casting you're so prou—"

Before he could finish the sentence, the odonaran leveled off and lunged with a gilded polearm. Brochwel got his arm up and knocked the attack up and away, reaching back in an awkward manner to keep his blade between Tecca and their attacker.

He had to get them through this safely. During his exile in the woods, Brochwel had been chased out of so many small lord's fiefdoms. If not even the squabbling minor lords wanted a disgraced warrior, Brochwel didn't dare hope that there would be another chance if he blew this one.

This odonaran had an eggshell-blue carapace and thick black barring near the wingtips. He accelerated away as a jagged line of lightning cracked behind from Tarquin's hand.

Tecca summoned her tiny hawk, which launched from her hand and set off in pursuit. That Brochwel had expected. A murder of crows rushing from the center horse caught him off-guard.

"You can control more than one summon?" Brochwel asked, flabbergasted as he tracked their attacker weaving around for the next strike.

Silvester hunkered over Emma. "But only one small flock. They're harmless anyway."

The odonaran tried Tarquin next, veering upward just before the lightning fired off and turned a patch of sand several feet away into glass.

"Can't predict."

Brochwel had a sinking feeling that they weren't going to make it. If this fight kept up long enough, another odonaran would see and alert the imperial army. Then even if they survived this encounter, could they make it home? He had refused to believe in luck ever since Macsen said Brochwel's was bad, but now he wondered.

"Just keep trying," he told Tarquin.

Their attacker kept probing for weakness, trying to find an angle they couldn't cover. Meanwhile Emma huddled under Silvester, both hands working on a magic circle that fizzled once, twice, but looked coherent the third time. The summoned birds struggled to keep up, but chased the odonaran off each time he lingered for more than one follow-up strike.

During one of those go-arounds, Brochwel noticed their attacker flew a tight loop. Flashy and completely unnecessary. Also, the guy had started the fight with a normal dive. Most odonarans preferred the looming approach that made them appear stationary against the clouds.

All the birds flapping and cawing, the regular blasts of lightning, and Brochwel's blade clanging against the attacker's made an utter racket. Tecca added a short gout of flame here and there, but controlling a summon and casting taxed any mage. They weren't winning, but they hadn't taken any major hits yet, maybe if Emma summoned something really swift and agile, like a—

A magic circle appeared on the ground in front of them, and out climbed a cave sloth. Triple the size of the horses, slow, and plodding. The odonaran laughed as the huge, lumbering claws missed by several feet. The target just wasn't there anymore by the time the sloth finished rearing up and slashed.

"What losers!" the attacker yelled.

"Sorry," Emma whispered.

Not what Brochwel had hoped for, but it was Emma's first battle and he hadn't asked her to bring out anything specific.

He whispered back, "It's alright. Maybe I can use it."

The odonaran went around, flying a steep climbing turn that caught the sunlight on his wings.

Brochwel got it: this guy was a show-off.

Diving again, the odonaran faked a run at Silvester only to veer at Brochwel.

"Tecca, duck!" Sword and polearm clashed, driving the incoming blade away from Brochwel's neck. It carved into his shoulder instead.

"Gah!"

It hurt, but he would hurt a lot more if he didn't do something to end this fight. "Silvester, bring your crows here, can they form a tube?"

"Uh ... yes?"

"Great, odonarans hate hitting their wings on things. Box him over the sloth in a moment."

Brochwel waited for the odonaran to veer off from a lunge at Tarquin's back, turned aside by a spray of lightning.

"Tecca, I need to dismount."

"Where are you going?" Tecca leaned the opposite way to keep the saddle balanced as Brochwel swung his leg over.

"Emma: sloth, rear paw back."

"Wha—yes!"

The sloth extended its rear leg back, and Brochwel used it as a step, helping him clamber up onto the beast's broad back. There he stood straight, shoulder bleeding, sword ready.

If this odonaran wanted to show off and made fun of a child for summoning the wrong beast, then he wouldn't be the sort to share the stage gracefully. Standing this high, away from his allies, Brochwel was inviting an attack from any angle. That was showy, but perhaps a further goad would be needed. What words would get under his carapace?

"Hurry up!" Brochwel shouted. "I've got a date with your sister after this."

"Why you cocky ..."

The odonaran lunged straight and the crows rose to encircle him. Veering through the flock would mean injuring his delicate wings. He had nowhere to go except through Brochwel.

Brochwel lowered himself, ready to sidestep the thrust that appeared to be coming then slash. He thought he heard another pair of wings behind, but he couldn't afford to look now. But Tarquin's lightning caught the shaft polearm's shaft, setting it ablaze. Perfect, now just thrust—

Not a thrust, but an upward swipe. Tecca's little hawk dove through the crows and took the hit first, slowing the strike a touch. Brochwel tilted his blade down and blocked just in front of his stomach, but was now being pushed backward off the cave sloth by his opponent's momentum. He looked into a face wearing smug certainty.

The smugness did not withstand Brochwel slamming the pommel up into his opponent's lower jaw.

They both tumbled into the dirt next to the sloth.

"You'll pay for that. I—" The odonaran stopped mid thought when the cave sloth's paw planted itself in the middle of his back and shoved him back down. "I surrender!"

Brochwel clutched his shoulder as he stood and went to stand over their attacker. He relief washed through him, or was it dizziness? Right, he had thought he heard more wings, but didn't hear it now. Quiet returned, save for the peculiar clinking of freshly made lightning glass cooling where Tarquin's bolts had found sand.

"Doctor Tarquin, your assistance please."

They all began to relax. Tecca dismounted and joined Brochwel over their foe, who moped on the ground. His wings had gathered some dirt and sand, and his chin was bleeding, but otherwise he would be fine. Brochwel relieved the cave sloth of prisoner-pinning duties.

"Thanks for the sloth Emma, it was an unexpected but useful summons. You know, I've never had an odonaran surrender to me before," Brochwel said as the sloth lumbered off to inspect unripe pinecones on a nearby tree.

"Shirt. Can rip?"

"Go ahead."

Tarquin tore a chunk of Brochwel's shirt away and began assessing the wound.

With a cold stare, Tecca regarded their attacker. "We have to kill him."

"What?" Brochwel and the odonaran said in unison.

"Let him live and he'll tell the army where we are, and we'll never make it home alive." She looked to Brochwel with sorrowful resolve. "I know it's not pleasant, but it's just what we have to do. If you don't want to, I'll—"

"Wait a second," Brochwel stepped between Tecca and the prisoner. "He surrendered."

"I did!"

"I don't like it, but Tecca is right," Silvester said. "If he talks—"

"I won't!"

"—we all die out here. Harden your heart, Brochwel. Aren't you a soldier?"

A large brown snake replaced the crows. It slithered toward the odonaran. When it got close, Brochwel planted his shoe behind the snake's head, restraining it.

Tecca charged a magic circle in her hand, Brochwel put the flat of Cambadr directly in the way.

"No no no," Brochwel looked around tormented. "We can't make these mistakes again. I've seen this before. It—"

"It will be fine. No one will see."

But there was someone to see. That person chose this moment to step out from behind a nearby tree from which they had been waiting for the right moment.

"Hello there!"

The whole party turned to look as a polearm clattered onto the rocks. Green and cream carapace. Brochwel hadn't imagined the sound of other wings earlier. He knew exactly who this was.

"My name is Aoda Eouzan. I will negotiate for my dumbass little brother's life."

Wait, this was Aoda's brother he was standing over? Luck was real and Brochwel had the worst. He had to hope she didn't see past the bandages wrapping his whole head and notice the familiar clothes.

Aoda looked at the motley crew. "Miss Gigot, if that's who you are, where's your attendan ..."

Then the long blue-black hair spilling out from under Brochwel's bandages caught her eye.

"Baltasar? What happened to you?"