D & S - action sequence Chptr. 1

Balthazar continued on through the festival, beginning in the main market area and taking a circuitous route that would take him through all of the locales now set up in the city. When he reached the end of his tour through the city, he would end up near the palace. Balthazar had his back to the street, he was sampling the new wine called Sangria, when he heard Sindara yell out.

As he turned, he spied a group of men in long robes, the type worn by the nomads who lived in the Arena Del Fuego desert, approached Balthazar’s group. But Balthazar could see, from the bulges under their robes, that they were dressed this way in order to hide the swords they were carrying. Sindara had apparently seen a sword under the robes of one of the “nomads” when a gust of wind revealed it to her, causing her to yell in warning.
“My Prince! Behind us quickly! We are under attack!” Sindara screamed.

Balthazar’s guard quickly formed a box formation around the Prince in order to keep him safe. Balthazar, however, was having none of this.

“I will not hide from any man! Make way for me in the front so that I may engage the enemy!”

Reluctantly, his guards made a space for him in the front of the formation beside Sindara, who had already dispatched three of the 15 men in the group attacking.

“My Prince! I told you to get behind us! Please, let us perform our duty to protect you!” Sindara pleaded.

“I will not! I am a more than competent swordsman and can more than handle myself in a fight! Besides, a true leader leads from the front! Now, stop trying to grab all the glory for yourself. There are enough victims to go around.”

Sindara glanced at Balthazar from the corner of her eye, making sure to keep the enemy in her line of vision. She saw the smile on his face as he prepared to engage the enemy and smiled along with him. He, like herself, gloried in the physicality of combat.

He moved with a fluid grace that was almost uncanny. Every stroke he dealt showed the power and quickness he developed through years of the best training the kingdom’s Master At Arms could drill into him. He was one of a very few warriors who could stand with her.

Still, her duty was to protect her Prince. She moved close enough to him to be able to defend his flanks should need be, but not so close that she herself would be struck by him during the heat of battle.

Balthazar was now engaging two of the men before him, one on his right, the other moving towards his left side in order to present a dual front. Knowing that if he allowed this to happen he would be outflanked, Balthazar parried the sword stroke from the man on his right and kicked his legs from under him.

He then immediately spun to his left quicker than his opponent could react, freezing him with surprise. Balthazar, now to the left of his second attacker, ducked under a high stroke from his opponent and stepped forward, sword extended, and ran that attacker through.

The attacker on his right was by now on his feet and began his attack just as Balthazar used his foot to push his first victim off of his sword point in order to make sure he didn’t take the sword with him to the ground. Balthazar was just in time to parry a series of quick and powerful sword strokes from the second attacker. This opponent was faster and a much better swordsman than the first.

Seeing no attackers to the right of his opponent, Balthazar circled to the left in order to separate him from his fellows. The next few seconds, or minutes, it was hard to tell the passage of time during a battle, were filled with a flurry of attack and counter-attack. Victory over this opponent would not come as easy as the first.

Balthazar’s opponent made an overhand swing reminiscent of his first opponent’s mistake. He parried the sword stroke and stepped forward, as before, intending to run his opponent through. At the last second, his opponent spun to the right in order to take him from the flank and lop off his sword arm as it was extended. Balthazar recognized the attack and in an instant, faster than his opponent could react, spun to his right.

He was now on his enemy’s flank and his side was exposed. Quickly, before his opponent had time to recover, he thrust his sword point through the opening in the man’s leather cuirass piercing his side all the way through to his heart. He withdrew his sword and the enemy combatant fell dead to the ground.

Sindara and the rest of the guard were dispatching the rest of the enemy with precision workmanship. Sindara, having no one left to stand against her, started counting the bodies lying dead on the ground. She counted 10 dead on the ground, and two still fighting against the rest of the guard. “That’s twelve, and counting the two Balthazar has just dispatched, that comes to fourteen. Fourteen!?!? Gods! Where is the other one?” she thought to herself.

Sindara turned and looked in Balthazar’s direction. His last spin move put him farther away from Sindara than she realized. She had somehow lost track of him during the fight, and the last enemy combatant was moving towards him from behind! Balthazar was unaware of that fact! Sindara knew she couldn’t cross the distance before the enemy ran her Prince through!

Sindara changed her grip on her sword so that she now held it like a spear. She drew her arm back and let fly the sword. It flew straight as an arrow, covering the distance to the target much faster she could run, and she was faster than anyone she knew. 
The enemy combatant, thinking he was about to deliver the fatal blow to the Prince from behind, raised his sword high overhead to deal a punishing killing blow. At that moment, Sindara’s sword struck him in the back, penetrating through his body, sword point sticking out of his chest just as Balthazar turned around. The enemy opponent fell face forward into the dust of the street, eyes glazing over as Balthazar danced out of the way.

Balthazar had a look of surprise on his face. He had let himself relax after slaying his two opponents. That was an almost fatal error. He was angry with himself for making such a foolish mistake. But not as angry as Sindara!

She crossed the distance between them quickly, and was nose to nose with him immediately. Then, before he could move, she landed a right hand to his jaw. Balthazar was now lying on the ground shaking his head to clear it, and trying to rub the pain out of his jaw. She helped him to his feet and began berating him.

“Fool! How could you leave your back exposed like that!!?? Not even a novice swordsman would make that mistake! You have had the best training any warrior could wish for, and then you do this!??! If I wasn’t so relieved that you are still alive, I’d beat you soundly about the head and shoulders!!!! You had better count yourself more than fortunate to have survived this little battle! For had you died, I would have paid a Necromancer to bring you back to life so that I might have the pleasure of beating you to death!”

Sindara was so angry that Balthazar imagined he saw smoke emanating from her ears. Balthazar’s anger at himself was barely held in check, but he knew that Sindara was right. If not for her, the Kingdom would have been left without an heir. He had almost failed in his duty to his kingdom.

If he had been killed, the kingdom would have been thrown into civil war once his mother’s time had passed. There would have been no King to take over the reins of ruler-ship. Thank the ancestors for Sindara’s quick thinking! Chastened and embarrassed, Balthazar addressed his best friend and bodyguard.

“I am sorry! You are right. My foolishness almost left the kingdom without its future King. I am constantly being told how I am the “greatest warrior the kingdom has ever known.” I almost got myself killed admiring my own handiwork. What greater fool can there be than me?!” Balthazar looked at the ground, downcast and embarrassed beyond words.

Seeing this, Sindara immediately felt sorry for him. Yes, he did a stupid thing and endangered himself and the future of the kingdom, but that could be corrected with some more training. After all, he was still alive, and the future of the Dragon Throne was now, once again, secured. But she still had to make sure that the mistake he made was one he would never forget. She just had to do it in a more comradely fashion.

“Yes, well, you should be ashamed! After all, there were only fifteen of them. We should have had a much easier time of it. And you only faced two of them. I personally killed twice as many, plus the one I got at the end. Thereby saving your sorry little princely behind, once again! And so, yet again, you owe me another round of drinks. How many rounds is that now? Ten? Twenty? It’s so many that I’ve lost count!” she said, the mischievous gleam back in her eye.

Balthazar’s anger abated and his heart melted. Sindara was truly a friend like no other in the world. She would die for him, and he for her.

“Alright, alright. Don’t belabor the point. I know I owe you a few rounds, but twenty!? You haven’t been that lucky, nor I that incompetent. Thanks for the save. You came through again. I am truly lucky to have such a good friend. Uh, but don’t let it go to your head. You don’t want to make the same mistake I made.” he laughed.

Sindara snorted, “Small chance of that! It would take more than a handful of men to best me alone, never with you and twelve guards by my side. Huh!  Attacking us with such a small group was suicide, if you ask me.”

“Yes, ha, ha. What idiot would attack us and a full squad with only fifteen men? Whoever thought this up must be an idiot. Why the force was so small that I almost believe that it was…..” Suddenly Balthazar and Sindara’s eyes opened wide in fear and understanding.

“Oh, my ancestors! It was a diversion!” they both exclaimed together.


copyright: Julian Marrero (3/16/2010)