I leap over a fallen tree, but I’ve overdone it, hurtling up higher than I meant to. I’m still new at this, but it’s no big deal. I kick off a big pine tree, bleeding off some of the forward momentum, and then plant both feet on the side of the withered remnants of a rotting maple that some wind storm or something had broken off near the bottom. It topples. I ride the dead thing down, roll, and spring back up to my feet without losing much speed.

It’d be exhilarating if we weren’t running for our lives.

Wendy’s not as fast as I am, and I can see she’s falling too far behind me when I sneak a look over my shoulder. I can also make out the large dark shapes looming up behind her. Dark men on huge dark horses, crashing through the trees and undergrowth, hellbent on doing us in.
I jump even higher this time, reach out to grasp the bole of a slim tree. I loop around it and now I’m flying the other way, right at our pursuers.

The heel of my right foot connects with the neck of the lead warrior. He topples out of the saddle without so much as a grunt to crash into a sapling. The crackling snaps that result cause me to wince, though I’m not sure what I’m hearing are bones or branches breaking or both.
I catch up the reins and, after hesitating a beat, I haul hard on them to my left.

I feel awful about it, but I can’t think of anything better to do.

The poor damn horse tries to turn but I’ve pulled too hard. The warhorse misses a step and starts to tumble. I leap forward and to the right, clear of the falling, screaming horse. I see a lance pass over my left shoulder, missing me by less than an inch.

I meet the forest floor with my feet, roll, and then I’m scurrying off to my left at an angle as I hear the rider behind the horse I’ve just murdered collide and go down in another ugly crash.

Two more men down. Probably dead. Two more down from earlier at the beginning of this. We’re doing well!

Three more? Five?

“Mark!”

It’s Wendy up ahead. She’s standing, bent at the knees, fists at her hips, scowling past me.

I run right past her.

If I run straight for a bit I won’t hit anything so I turn my head to watch.

The rider’s black lance is angled down at her, and she slaps it away with a sneer. I think her idea is to knock the point of it into the tree behind her, but if it is the rider foils her, pulling it up and away.

Warhorses are trained to fight too, to run over enemies, stomping them dead into the ground, or biting their faces off. I know Wendy knows this because I yelled it to her not three minutes ago. You know, just in case she didn’t know.

She rolled her eyes at me. Can you believe that? I mean, I’m not a mansplainer.

Okay, I try not to be. I was just making sure, okay? How am I supposed to know what she knows and what she doesn’t unless I ask?

I expect Wendy to dive out to the side, but she doesn’t, and it looks like I’m going to watch my girlfriend get ridden down.

The horse has to turn to miss the tree behind Wendy and when the big stallion does so, she seizes her moment, throwing her shoulder into the horse’s knee just as its front legs approach to trample her.

It’s perfect.

The hoof misses the ground, and she knocks the big warhorse right off its front legs so that all she needs to do is take a step under it and she’s safe. Horse and rider sail right into the tree.

We’re really doing pretty well against these evil pricks.

 

 

We’d come upon them on the road.

They were there, seven or eight of them, with three of them dismounted. They stood beside a wagon. Two of them held a man’s arms while a third pummeled his midsection in front of two women. The women were screaming. One of them cradled a baby in her arms.

Wendy and I took one look at each other and made our choice.

We walked up to them all and I said, “Just what the hell is going on here?”

The bandits or whatever were all heavily armed with lances and swords, shields strapped to their backs, and all wore grayish black plate armor. The helmets were the same color and all the same design, bucketish with a T-shaped opening for their eyes and mouth.

They were the only ones there that were armed.

That didn’t stop the one that had been beating the man from drawing his sword and taking a swipe at Wendy.

She blocked the blade with her forearm, stepped under the man’s guard, grabbed the asshole’s wrist, and rammed her butt into the guy’s leg as she pulled. The swordsman wheeled over her shoulder and came down headfirst onto the road.

The crack of his neck breaking was so loud.

Wendy looked sick.

I certainly felt the same, but the moment passed when all the rest of those bastards charged us.

 

 

“Did you just knock over a horse?” I ask Wendy once she gets running again.

“Yes, I believe I did,” says Wendy. She sniffs and smirks.

“You are a badass.”

“You’ve taken out more than I have.”

“Naturally, I’m a badass too, only more so. I told you when we rolled up our characters that mobility rules.”

Wendy sighed. “Which means I have to tank.”

“Hey, I’m tanky, only less so.”

“You’re a dufus.”

I know there should only be maybe two more of whoever these guys are in the woods, but that’s only if the ones we saw on the road were the only guys they had. A dangerous assumption. The heavy sounds of pursuit are still close behind us so the safe thing to do is keep going until either they give up, get lost, or we kill them all.

Yuck.

Before this the only thing I’ve ever killed that wasn’t pixelated was bugs. I know if I start thinking about it, I’ll barf. If I barf, I’ll lose a step or two at least. If I lose a step or two, I’ll get run through, so I decide it’s better to barf later.

Maybe it’d be different if everything wasn’t so real. I mean, it is real. As real as anything would ever be again, according to Ms. Armstrong.
Again, maybe it’s a bad time for philosophy and introspection.

“I like being a monk,” Wendy says, her tone matter of fact.

That had been the deal. Ms. Armstrong had recommended that, since we were joining together, going as the same class of character might be beneficial. We could learn together as we went, see? That sounded good at the time, and I’ve always enjoyed playing monks in various video games and tabletop roleplaying so Wendy and I made a deal. I got to pick the class. She got to pick the race.

“Told you,” I say. “But why’d you have to go and pick gnomes?”

“Gnomes are cute!”

She is too. Honey hair, apple cheeks, supple curves, and really goddamn short. Shorter than I was by a couple of inches, just like before when we were human.

I’m about to say so when I hear the crashes from either side.

They’ve flanked us. A rider from behind while two others will cross us from the sides. This is bad.

The flankers are closing faster. Probably on lighter horses. Scouts for the others maybe?

Wendy roars and, no shit, leaps at the one to our right. She takes hold of the poor thing’s mane between its ears, plants her feet on its chest, and fucking pulls.

The horse’s head is yanked down. Its forelegs try to do something but then the rear of the horse comes up and over, Wendy lost to sight beneath.

I dodge the lance from the rider coming from our left. I hear him smash into the mess behind me and swallow my terror. Wendy is in that.

Maybe hurt or worse.

No time.

The rider from behind is leveling his lance at me. I feint to the right, then race to the left, thinking I’ll grab the foot in his stirrup and push him right out of the saddle.

I underestimate his ability.

The lance tracks me faster than I expect, hopping from one side of the horse’s head to the other.

At first, I think he’s missed me. I don’t feel anything, but I’m moving backwards without moving my feet. I can’t touch the ground. Then there’s burning and a weird pressure in my abdomen. The pain is unbelievable. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt.

I want it to stop. I want to black out. Let it all go.

But Wendy is standing up in a tangle of broken lances, horses, and groaning men, dusting herself off.

He’ll kill her.

I’m lifted farther off the ground, and I hear the bastard laugh as I scream.

Soon I’m over his head looking down. I can see his smile through the gap in his helmet.

He doesn’t expect me to pull myself down the length of his lance. Once I overcome my body’s natural grip of a weapon suddenly introduced through its flesh, the trip happens with some ease, aided by all my blood and the quality of the weapon.

I slide down onto his fist.

I smile when I break his neck.

The horse stops.

The dead man and I fall off its back together and I hear Wendy screaming.