Deer

 

“Time’s up, Victor.” The knight at the head of the group, Cassius, called out. His voice echoed from within his golden helmet, adorned with the silver antlers that marked the royal knights of Cervus. 

Before him, other royal knights had dragged two figures before him. They were both dressed in plain, common clothing, but nevertheless had the audacity to look the royal knight in the eyes of his visor.

Victor looked bruised and beaten, with a particularly nasty welt blooming on his cheek which adorned his olive skin like a corsage. His typically confident eyes were instead filled with uneasy panic, as they darted around to develop some sort of plan.

Next to him, Silvia appeared less bruised but certainly battered. The young woman had leaves stuck in her tawny hair, and practically snarled at anyone who got close.

“Did you believe you were simply going to kill me? With what; a good trap? A well placed arrow?” Cassius tisked, treating them like children who had been caught reaching into a cookie jar.

Victor instead directly his gaze towards the one figure who didn’t belong. The one warrior not dressed head to toe in gold, adorned with the mantle of the deer.

“You led the knights to us Cecilia?” He spoke with utter dismay in his voice, finally faced with a variable to his perfect plan he had not seen coming.

Cecilia looked down at him from Cassius’ side with a cold glare. Unlike the knights, her face was not blocked by a helmet. Her grey eyes twitched bitterly, and her words were spat like they carried poison.

“Cassius’ promised me the talisman. You had me play bodyguard. Of course I led them to you.”

Victor still didn’t seem to understand how it could be possible. “But you-?”

“But what?” She growled, getting right up to his face. “I heard what you told Silvia when you thought I slept. You demeaned me, insulted me. You thought to use me like a common thug, and you never planned to let me have the talisman.”

Victor’s face went white, and for once the man seemed to have nothing to say.

“And now the game is over,” Cassius commented, sounding almost bored. 

“You think he’ll give you it?!” Silvia yelled suddenly. “He’s just used you to get us!”

Cecilia frowned, turning to Cassius and holding out her gauntlet-covered hand. “I did as you wished. Your end of the bargain.”

“On this, the lowlander is correct.” Cassius didn’t even give Cecilia the dignity of facing her. “Consider it payment enough that I spare your life for your temporary treason. The talisman remains with me.”

Cecilia’s eyes narrowed, but felt the ever present numbers of knights around her. She simply stood still.

As if there was never any doubt that she would sit there and take the news as she did, Cassius continued speaking down at Victor and Silvia. 

“Now then, I would ask you about the information you got ahold of, but I doubt it will matter with you gone. Any final words, Victor?”

Instead of facing the knight, Victor locked eyes with Cecilia, who remained rooted to her spot.

“I thought about what I said afterwards, when you had disappeared. No matter what you’ve done in the past, it was fucked up to use you like I was. I’m sorry, Cecilia.”

She felt the words pierce her like a shard of ice, unable to break his eye contact. Cassius wouldn’t meet her gaze even to pretend she mattered in his calculus, and yet here was the man who had called her lonely, broken, wretched, and irredeemable, apologizing for those words with his final breath.

“Touching,” Cassius commented, raising his mace high.

Cecilia finally moved, placing herself between the royal knight and his prisoners. 

“If you want them dead,” she whispered, the sound carrying through the suddenly silent forest, “you’ll need to kill me first.”

Cassius formed the first sounds of a chuckle, before it was cut off by Cecilia lunging forwards with her twin falchions aimed right for his helmet visor.

“Run, now!” She roared as her blow was parried by a wide swing of his mace, battering her strike to the side.

Victor and Silvia did not hesitate to scramble to their feet, and begin to spring away behind her.

Cassius took a step back calmly. “I said I was going to let you live. But you threw that away, for what?”

She didn’t answer, bringing her blades back into a ready position.

“Three of you, go after the runaways. We’ll join you after the lady knight is gone.” Cassius’ face was still hidden, but she could feel his grin.

The silver antlers on his helmet crackled, and then a bolt of lightning impacted them like a lightning rod. His armor became covered in riled jolts of golden electricity, running across his mace as well.

“Behold; the fury of Cervus!” He roared, smashing his mace forwards.

His blow smashed into a tree as Cecilia ducked, sending bark flying like shrapnel from the weight of the hit.

She blocked a strike from another knight to her side, planting a blade into the ground to steady it as it took the impact. She quickly dove forwards, anticipating another strike from Cassius.

She needed space. In the dense trees, numbers could be rendered less of a hindrance with the choke points she could locate.

She pounced on one of the knights, moving her blades like twin arcs of fury. The knight staggered, but she had to pull her blades back to parry Cassius before she could press her advantage.

“You’re less impressive backed into a corner.” Cassius commented, still tinged with holy lightning. “You’ve finally found your place.”

“Backed into a corner by a herd of deer?” She barked out a laugh, pointing her blades forwards as she stepped back, creating space for herself. “No, you’ve forgotten your place. Beasts of prey ruling over a kingdom? You should’ve worshipped a better guardian.”

She dropped her blades, and they clattered to the ground unceremoniously. 

Cassius was momentarily caught off guard, and then he saw her eyes. Just like his would be, behind the helmet, hers were crackling with raw power. Not the gold of deer, but something else. Something red.

She lunged with a howl, and tore into one of the knights with her bare hands. Her nails slashed across the metal chestplate, carving a path to the body underneath.

Before she could finish the job, Cassius and another knight had surged in with their weapons raised. One of them missed, but Cassius landed a glancing blow on her side.

She flinched, the lightning behind his strike singeing her skin underneath the armor, but it did not stop her. She pushed through, and tore her way to the knight inside, cutting two deep chunks out of his skin before leaping up and hoisting herself into the trees.

“Fleeing?!” Cassius called into the leaves, but there was only silence. No rustling, no creaks. 

One of his knights was on the ground, trying to tend to the fallen knight. He turned to the other two, gesturing upwards. “Find her.”

Before either could respond, she had launched herself back down, and wrapped her arms tightly around the neck of a knight. With a savage grin, she squeezed her arms tightly, only taking a moment for them to begin pressing inwards. With a crunch, the screams were cut off, and she darted back into the trees.

Cassius whirled around wildly. “Get her down! Burn the trees!”

Without waiting for his men, he called upon the lightning once more to strike into the trees, with one massive barrage of power. With an earth-shattering crash, dozens of bolts smashed down to begin fires everywhere he could reach.

He panted, having exerted a massive portion of the guardian deer’s energy granted to him. His hand wildly clutched at the talisman around his neck, allowing the power to soothe his strain.

The knight on the ground suddenly screamed. Cassius and his remaining knight whipped around to see the knight which had been helping his first casualty lose his heart, as it was ripped from his sundered chest. Cecilia was gone in another blur of movement, leaving the warm organ to drop in the grass.

 “Isn’t this more like it?” Her voice came from the trees, and Cassius quickly replied by calling another lightning bolt on the location it came from.

“A couple of deer, anxiously watching the trees.” Her voice came from another direction, and he tried again in vain.

The knight to the side of Cassius bolted, beginning to run away. Cassius screamed at him to return to his side, but the man clearly feared one person in this forest more than him.

Then there was a yell, and a bonechilling snap. And just like that, Cassius was alone in the forest.

He glanced at the first man who was taken down, barely clinging to life, and then took off running. The powers coursing through his veins made him faster, more nimble. He could make it to better terrain.

And then, as he ran, she was there. 

Cecilia fell from a tree in front of him, landing on him as he barreled into the place she was falling. He tumbled, while she knelt on his back and carelessly brought her hands around the silver antlers on the top of his helmet. 

He fell forwards against the ground, his neck forced back as she began to pull on his antlers. He felt the force begin to dig, as the bottom of his helmet pressed desperately against his head.

Cassius braced, and summoned another strike of lightning to impact his antlers directly. Cecilia barely flinched, applying more and more strength.

Between Cassius’ body and the metal of his helmet, it was clear which one would be destroyed first.

There was a series of terrible crunches from within his body, before Cecilia fully ripped the head off of his head. The head itself remained within the helmet it occupied, though a small part of the upper spine hung from the bottom; the rest having broken within the body.

She tossed his head to the side, pushing his body over to rip the talisman from his corpse. It was a small cylinder of gold with antlers sticking off either side, glowing in the light of the forest fire.

She pushed it into her pocket, and looked north. Victor and Silvia were still out there, hopefully having escaped. She didn’t know where to go now, but it seemed in her interest to make friends. The best wolves hunt in packs, after all.

 

Prompt credit to createglue