October 1070
"Ugh, sometimes I hate being right," I muttered as I leapt to my feet.
The "something" in question turned out to be a trio of crossbow bolts lying broken on the ground. I looked up from the broken bolts to the small copse to the southwest, and noted there were three figures at the edge of the woods frantically reloading while an indeterminate number of extras milled around further inside.
"Really?" I asked. "Really."
"Harry!"
I whirled at Elfleda's cry, saw she was pointing at something behind me, and whirled further - and almost had a heart attack. Four black cats with giant blue eyes and hands that were an unnatural mix of human and feline were charging across the field at Shadowfax, but the part that really got me was that they looked to have the speed and build of malks.
"Nononono," I muttered as I frantically tried to both dig out my blasting rod and bring the wards down at the same time. I managed to lower the anti-magic wards just as the malks were closing in on Shadowfax and I desperately thrust forth my blasting rod with a yell of, "Fuego!"
A bar of fire shot out towards the malks and I moved my rod in a fairly wide arc in order to catch all of them. The malks yowled and screeched in pain as the fire consumed them, and then kept yowling, which seemed very strange to me at the moment. Malks were Winter fae; that amount of fire should've killed them outright.
I whistled for Shadowfax and beckoned Elfleda closer. With problems on two different sides, I switched which hand held which foci, and I brought up my comprehensive shield in the direction of the copse as I brought the rest of the wards down. Shadowfax arrived a few seconds later, and I spared a glance for the yowling malks and the fire that was burning way longer and way brighter than it should have.
Then the fire flowed and split and faded, leaving about twelve black cats behind. Malks couldn't do that.
I had a half second to think "what the hell?" before they started charging again, this time at me. At the same time another few things happened: a volley of bolts hit my shield, I spotted a small group of men running out of the woods, about fifteen in all, and a mounted woman that seemed rather like Sofia moved up to the crossbowmen.
"Oh come on," I groaned, throwing up my physical shield to block the strange, multiplying black cats and sealing the three of us inside a two-toned bubble of force.
The black cats started clawing and biting at my shield, sending tiny sympathetic jolts up my arm as my magic processed the damage and strain on my reserves in a way I could understand. Seconds later, something invisible slammed into my comprehensive shield. It wasn't much all things considered but it was clearly something, and while I had the reserves to take my time figuring out an approach, I still needed to find one fast.
"Okay, okay, so fire doesn't work, what about force," I muttered. I angled my right hand so my fingers were pointing at the cats, then brought my shield down for a fraction of a second. In that fraction, I fired off a quick blast of force. Enough force to crack a rib hit one cat right in the face, and the only thing it accomplished was to send it flying a ways down the hillock. The cat hit the ground, started bubbling, and over the course of seconds grotesquely swelled before splitting into two new cats.
Which told me one thing: the cats multiplied upon being hit with magic.
"That's such bullshit," I said to myself.
That removed direct offense as an option. If I couldn't kill the cats with magic then I'd need to resort to Amoracchius, and I doubted the cats could survive getting split in half by a Sword of the Cross. But, there was another problem: the men. I spared a glance over my shoulder and found that they were getting close to the base of the hillock, and were maybe half a minute away at best. At that point they'd start hammering at my shield, and I'd be surrounded.
Now, one guy I could take. Two guys, three guys, no problem. At least fifteen guys, with a sorceress for support, and thirteen black cats? That was a bigger problem. I'd need to resort to quick and dirty methods to taking the men out, and that ran the risk of accidentally killing them. No, I had to clear away the cats, bog down the men, and then get out of there. Somehow. Escape potions were an option, but that would mean leaving Shadowfax behind; I didn't want to do that if I could at all avoid it.
"Elfleda, check the middle saddlebag on Shadowfax's right," I ordered. "There are two waterskins in there. I want you to put one skin in a pocket on the left side of my coat and one on the right, then mount up. You'll be riding."
Elfleda looked remarkably collected - and annoyed - for a medieval noblewoman in the middle of an ambush, but I guess that was the Winter talking. She nodded, went for the saddlebag, and quickly pulled out the two potions, sticking one on either side of my coat before mounting Shadowfax in one fluid motion.
"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath. I drove my staff into the ground and looked over my shoulder at the soldiers again - they were closer than I would have liked - and with my now free hand took my blasting rod and stuffed it into a pocket. Then I moved to pick up my staff in my right hand, then brought down my physical shield and hit the cats with a loud, "Forzare!"
The cats flew back like punted footballs, hurtling away from the hillock at such speed that when they hit the ground a few hundred feet distant most of them splattered. Unfortunately, they'd all begun bubbling in midair, and while the impact of landing had killed the thirteen that went flying, a fresh eighteen landed on their feet.
I quickly mounted Shadowfax with Elfleda's help, kept the comprehensive shield pointed in the direction of the soldiers and the sorceress, blocked another trio of regular bolts and one magical one, and burnt the remains of the picnic site with a quick "Fuego!" to deny Sofia anything of thaumaturgic value. Then I dug my staff into the stirrup holster and held on for dear life as Elfleda kicked Shadowfax into motion.
We soon left the soldiers behind, but we didn't manage to escape the damn cats, who zipped across the ground like a bunch of roadrunners. I brought up my physical shield and overlapped my two shields again, forming a solid silver-blue bubble to keep out the cats. That turned out to be a not-great idea as Shadowfax promptly panicked at a seeming wall of blue light appearing right in front of him and instinctively balked and reared back, and he would have thrown me from his back and so ran smack dab into the barrier if it wasn't for Elfleda suddenly reaching back and grabbing me by the tunic with strength born of panic and adrenaline.
"Some warning next time!" she said sharply.
"Yeah, yeah," I said with a wince as the cats started clawing at the shields. "Can you get him moving again?"
"Give me a moment," she said.
As she released me and turned back around, trying to coax Shadowfax into moving forward and realizing the shields moved with him, I focused my attention on the cats. Hitting the ground had clearly killed the ones that went flying, so there wasn't some "cats have nine lives" weirdness going on in that regard. Magical force had done nothing to harm them however, and the fire had probably been a miss as well, so my working theory was that they somehow absorbed magic and used that to spawn new cats. Which seemed like the purest bullshit and something that should have limitations, but hell if I could figure out what they were at the moment.
The solution was obvious though: mundane, physical force. The only question was how to apply it in sufficient quantities.
After a few seconds, Elfleda finally convinced Shadowfax to stumble forward, then canter, then finally got him running again as he noticed he wasn't about to run into the shield. This had the pleasing effect of slamming the physical shield into the cats in front and having them slide off like rain off a windshield. Once our front was clear, I dropped the physical shield and reached to grab a handful of ball bearings, carefully rolling one out of my palm and grasping it between index finger and thumb.
Looking over my shoulder, I found that the cats were easily keeping up with us, repeatedly leaping and pouncing at my comprehensive shield. Further back, Sofia and four other riders had crested the hillock and were now chasing after us as well. They weren't that close though so I focused my attention on the cats, trying to get feel for their rhythm and when it would be safe to drop my shield. At a lull between their lunges, I brought down my comprehensive shield, pointed at one of the cats with my right hand, and yelled, "Forzare!"
Kinetic force tore the ball bearing out from between my fingers and sent it flying into the head of one of the cats. It punched through its skull like a bullet and dropped the cat to the earth, where it didn't start bubbling again. I snapped up my physical shield right after to block the next lunge, then replaced it with my comprehensive shield.
"Ha!"
I finally had a way to whittle down their numbers. Which, of course, is exactly when Sofia flung out her hand and launched another bolt of force - this time, at the cats. It slammed into the side of two cats and set them to bubbling, bringing the number of cats chasing us up to nineteen from the seventeen I had just dropped it to.
I spared a dirty glance for Sofia, though I doubted she could see my face through the shield at this distance.
Some of the cats abandoned a direct assault and split off to the sides, where they started to slowly gain on us, which was another problem. I checked my palm and counted off seven more ball bearings. Combined with the twelve still in my pocket - I generally carried around twenty - I had just enough to kill all of the cats. Except, of course, for any that Sofia multiplied. I needed a new idea.
And a few seconds later, I thought of one. I pulled my staff out of its holster and turned around the other way, dropping the comprehensive shield in the process. But before the cats could take advantage of that opening, I slashed my staff across and yelled, "Aparturum!"
A more horizontal rift than I usually went for tore open the veil between the mortal world and the spirit world. A number of cats, either caught in mid-leap or in the process of jumping, hurtled directly into the opening and disappeared. A quick "Instaurabos!" ensured they wouldn't be coming back.
And just like that, nineteen were cut down to twelve.
The cats didn't seem to be any smarter than regular cats, so none of them coordinated or reacted in time as I swept my staff back around to the left and opened another rift, disposing of another four. As I did that I brought up the physical shield on my right to block the cats on that side. Once they did so, I dropped the shield, opened my palm, and before the cats could react shot out the rest of the ball bearings in my hand, killing the ones on the right. Left. Whichever.
That left five, and seeing fourteen of their number disappear in quick succession made them reconsider. Whatever passed for instinct in the minds of these multiplying felines weighed the situation and the lack of progress they'd made, and a few seconds later the remaining black cats just turned tail and ran.
I snapped up a physical shield just in time to deflect a desperate shot from Sofia, which felt even weaker than the last two I'd blocked. I checked the distance between us and the riders - about twenty seconds gallop on horseback - and asked Elfleda to bring us around.
Then I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew the house down. Or to strip out the metaphor, I brought down the shield, thrust my staff forward, and yelled, "Solvos!"
Solvos was what I used to take down wards. Usually, I applied a little more care and precision, exercised a degree of courtesy.
I didn't have a lot of courtesy to go around at the moment.
The spell smashed through Sofia's defensive charms like a train hitting a car stuck on the tracks. Bright lights flared about each of the riders, the product of the wards going up in flames. The sudden lights going off near their heads spooked their horses, who whinnied and balked and broke formation.
I gave Sofia a few seconds to properly appreciate how easily I tore apart her wards. Then I looked at her straight on and added a little power to my voice, to make sure it carried.
"Here's the deal: your boss is on his way out," I boomed. "And at the moment, I just feel annoyed. So I'm going to give you just one chance: make like a tree and get out of here, before I change my mind."
Sofia and the riders didn't immediately react, at least from what I could tell, so I decided to give them some encouragement. I pulled out my blasting rod, aimed it above their heads, and shot out a bar of fire in their direction with an added, "Go on, get!"
After another few seconds, Sofia turned her horse around, and after a brief and uncertain pause, the other riders did the same. I kept my blasting rod pointed at them as they left, and only lowered it once they crested the hillock and disappeared.
"And good riddance," I muttered.
Right then Shadowfax whinnied and bucked, Elfleda yelping at the same time. My posture wasn't ideal for staying on, twisted around as it was, so I ended up windmilling my arms as I fell on my face. The moment after I hit the ground I rolled to the right and thrust my staff forward in preparation for an attack.
It never came. In fact there was nothing there, just an open rift in the air right next to a riderless Shadowfax. I blinked, and it took me a few moments to realize what had happened. Then I swore, leapt up, rushed to the edge of the rift - and stopped.
There, just twenty feet inside the rift, standing atop a mound of flowers, was Elfleda. And right behind her, with a hand around Elfleda's throat, was the Leanansidhe.