Exiled
Yanking the dangling visor off it’s solitary hinge, he tossed the torn, tattered item into the thorns. He lowered himself onto the rocks that littered the lakeside, baking in the afternoon heat. The glimmering lake looked inviting under the midsummer sun, more so to a man who had spent the better part of a day and night fleeing. The lapis lazuli on the shore glittered with an effervescence reminiscent of Jarkiraks that dotted matron’s orchard on foggy nights and were said to be tiny men bearing the TRETA’S gift.
He was jolted out of his exhasution-fuelled idyll by a high whinnying. He felt a momentary pang of sorrow for the horse. He did help raise the team after all. The bramble trap, crude as it was, would have been sufficient to eventually lame the beast. A smile tugged at his lips then. Only one of his pursuers remained mounted.
His poleax was in no position to withstand another confrontation. His fatigued and molasses-like defence against the captain of the House Guard had resulted in his weapon cracking in a shower of splinters. He drove the bottom spike downwards into he pebble-strewn ground in an attempt to break off the bottom third of the weapon entirely, but the rosemary shaft remained intact. Swearing, he kicked, the shaft giving away under his mail backed boots with a satisfying snap. What remained was an unbalanced, albeit workable weapon.
The report of hooves striking pebbles made him wheel around to face the attacker who had reined in his horse at the edge of the chalcedony littered shore. Hafting his maimed poleax, he remained stationary even as the horseman scanned for a way to guide his horse past the sharp cordon that separated him from his adversary. The House Guard probably did not realise that his mounted advantage being seemingly denied was, in fact, intended by his worn out opponent.
Without a word, the horseman couched his spear and drove his mount forward. Quint didn’t have the opportunity to evince surprise before his instincts drove him sideways out of the path of the foaming beast, it’s speed carrying it into the shallow water. It looked like the Guard didn’t much care for the well-being of his horse.
Scrambling to stand up, he saw the House Guard wheel his mount preparing for a second charge. Sprinting forward and scooping a pebble, Quint threw it with all the force his tired hands could muster. The horse shied away as the pebble found its mark on its forehead and confounded, it danced around in the shallow water.
Showing impressive control, the House Guard calmed his mount but Quint left him with little time to ready a charge. A blow from his hammer unseated the Horse Guard who then floundered about in the water, a leg still arrested by the stirrup. The panicked horse, in a flurry of neighs and grunts, dragging its hapless rider along, withdrew from the water in a slippery haste coming to rest once it crossed the cordon of chalcedony. Quint wondered if there was enough of his opponent still left put up a fight.
Cautiously approaching the House Guard, he hafted his poleax and circled his fallen adversary well out of his arm’s range. He heard the rattled wheeze of
