Chapter 36: A bow before a sword
Ignazio clenched his teeth at the sight of Federico's fall. He was a good man, who didn't deserve to die from treachery from that… She-devil, was that how Gianni called her?
The moniker fit the woman. There certainly was nothing womanly about her as she blasted her spells and slashed with her sword; so little of it that Ignazio didn't feel a single pang of regret trying to shoot her dead.
He peered through the embrasure, trying to line a shot through all the obstacles. Soldiers on both sides, trees… wait, was that the arcane swordsman?
Ignazio looked again and knew he wasn't mistaken. Luciano cut the head off an Oliveira soldier and dashed past him—towards the earth wall and the archers behind it.
*Bloody hell,* he cursed, reaching into his quiver. His fingers distinguished the arrows by the feel of their fletchings and grooves on the ends of their arrow shafts. Simple triangular fletchings for basic arrows, shield-shaped ones for enchanted. One groove for heart-seeking arrows, two for explosive, three for piercing. Too few of each, way too few.
Ignazio pulled out a piercing arrow. The tip, long and narrow, pointed at Luciano. The limbs of the bow croaked as Ignazio pulled the bowstring. There were only nineteen meters of distance—almost a point-blank shot.
He fired. The enchanted arrow flew with the speed far higher than Ignazio's bow could give it—and even without enchantments engraved in its limbs, it was an amazing composite bow that not every grown man could draw.
In short, the arrow was fast, and aimed true—straight into Luciano's heart. There was no way for him to dodge, even with his enchanted speed—not from that distance, surely.
No, instead Luciano did something far worse—he met the arrow with his sword. Magic clashed against magic with an angry screech of metal that rose even over the battlefield—and the arrow flew aside, deflected, while Luciano merely staggered. Even with half of its piercing power gone, it went through an unlucky tree before leaving Ignazio's sight.
For a moment, he was speechless.
Luciano regained his balance and charged at Ignazio with doubled speed.
Ignazio gathered his wits together and turned to the other archers. His own men from his own lands—mostly. The bulk of Gianni's archers sat farther away, behind much less convenient cover. They simply weren't as *good* as the men he trained.
"Scatter!" Ignazio shouted. "Keep firing at Ginevra if you can!"
Then he clenched his bow and whispered a spell.
"*Oh, winds that dance through the leaves, let my steps be as swift as the blowing breeze.*"
He still remembered the day he first laid eyes on it. Soon after, Ignazio passed a test for his second rank, a true coming-of-age in the eyes of his now-retired father and an event worthy of a feast. All the nearby lords were invited.
Gianni came to congratulate him, and not empty-handed. He brought a spell. A first circle spell unknown to the Vespertino family until that day. It was a fine gift, one that would serve Ignazio children one day. If he lives long enough.
In the short time that Ignazio needed to finish the spell, Luciano crossed another ten meters until the earth wall. There was a time for another spell, and the time to move away—back and to the side, to not lead the enemy to the wounded.
"*Lightning that dances in the skies, let my enemies feel your electric wrath!*"
Mana gathered in his hands and poured into his bow. The glyphs on it glowed. Ignazio drew a bowstring that cracked with energy, and an arrow of yellow lightning appeared between.
Just in time. Luciano had vaulted over the earth wall, for a moment making himself a perfect target.
Ignazio, five meters away from the wall right now, let the Lightning Bolt fly. Pushed both with the magic of the spell itself, the magic of Ignazio's bow and the pure physical force of the bowstring, it shot as swiftly as an enchanted piercing arrow.
And still Luciano ducked mid-air, making the arrow strike his pauldron instead of his torso.
He gasped in pain, but the swordsman's armor, no doubt enchanted, consumed most of the damage. Luciano landed on the ground with a less than graceful, but still swift tumble and sprung to his feet.
Ignazio already ran farther back and to the side, chanting again.
"*Lightning that dances in the skies, let my enemies feel—*"
A tall vertical blade-like wave of energy flew in Ignazio's direction, aimed straight at his bow. Ignazio turned to the side, protecting his vital organs and vital possessions.
The wave landed at his side, piercing his leather armor and cutting a long, straight gash that went all the way from his left shoulder to the side of his torso. Ignazio cried out, the unfinished spell falling apart in his hands.
Now Luciano was right in front of him, his sword shining with magic within—the same magic that just flew at Ignazio's face. There was no time to prepare another spell. No time to reach for an arrow.
But there was one spell Ignazio knew so well that he didn't need words for it. Only the mental effort to shape mana into the correct form. His wounded arm protested when he drew the bow, but the beating of Ignazio's heart drowned out the pulse of the pain.
When Luciano swung again, Ignazio parried the blow with a shot of an Arcane Arrow—then immediately shot another. Luciano deflected it with his sword and kicked Ignazio in the shin with an iron-plated boot.
"Dirty bastard!" Ignazio jumped back and tried to catch his breath. His shin ached and his side burned with pain. "I thought you were a swordsman, not a donkey!"
Luciano was panting, too. It couldn't have been easy to dash around in all that shin-breaking armor.
Ignazio took a moment to look around. They had moved quite far away from the battlefield, but there certainly was still a lot of fighting going on in the distance. But who was winning?
Luciano raised his sword, and Ignazio knew the breather was over. He raised his bow.
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