Battle for Peruna by Josiah Boss (book club suggestions TXT) 📕

other side of the mountains. Only five hundred remained of the three thousand that had gone into the fight. The one thousand sent to attack the back were never seen again.
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Zebulon opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. He'd always gotten this deep aching feeling of dread whenever his grandfather told the part about the back attackers disappearing and never being seen again. They'd just vanished into thin air. Poof!--gone! Without thinking, he snapped his fingers—gone, just like that.
He sighed and shifted in place as the hard rock got uncomfortable in the one position. Just then he heard a sound behind him. He turned and saw a tall human lady standing there. She was as tall as he was, and usually the taller-than-normal humans didn't even come up to his shoulder.
She stood straight and tall in her iron gray dress, as she coldly stared at him. Zebulon automatically started praying. The lady seemed to light up from some inner light. That was why Zebulon could see her. His hands dropped to the hilts of his short swords. From somewhere in the folds of her skirt, the lady whipped out two swords and crossed them in front of her. She glared at him. Metal rang as he pulled out his swords and crossed them in front of himself.
Suddenly, she raised her swords and jabbed them back into their scabbards; then she smiled. “Put your swords down. I mean you no harm,” she said this as innocently as if she were discussing the weather. Zebulon uncrossed his swords, but kept them in hand. “You see these?” she asked sweetly, gesturing to the bodies of the centaurs. He nodded. “They aren't dead.”
“Really?” he asked skeptically. She nodded.
“They're under a spell, which will break in five minutes, if you can disarm me in a sword fight. And before you make your decision, I'll warn you that no one alive has ever beat me.”
“There's a catch in this somewhere, isn't there?”
“Nope, but rule number one—match starts with both participants having their hands at their sides with swords sheathed. Rule number two—match ends when one participant loses his weapon or weapons. Winner can either kill the loser or let him go. Rule number three—no shields allowed.”
Zebulon eyed her warily, then somewhat reluctantly sheathed both his swords. He figured that if he could at least hold her off for the five minutes, then the spell would be broken. Then they could surround her and defeat her.
He backed up a couple of steps and put on his helmet, checked to make sure all his bodily armor was secure, then stepped forward. He was the second fastest sword drawer in Peruna, only Garnock topped him.
They stared at each other for half a second. Then metal rang against metal as four swords cleared sheaths at precisely the same instant. The lady got one blow as an offense, which was neatly blocked by Zeb. Then Zebulon turned the tables and dealt a series of hard fast blows one right after the other. This caused the lady to give ground to him. He thought he saw a look of unbelief on her face when he turned around and went on the offensive, but it was quickly gone.
For the next four minutes they went round and round in one of the deadliest, yet most beautiful, sword fights ever seen. To Zebulon's surprise, it was the lady who called a timeout first. He looked at the centaurs. They seemed just as dead as when the duel had begun. Within half a minute, they were back at their deadly duel.
Barely a minute had passed, when he heard a noise behind him. The lady instantly stopped fighting and looked past him, face white. He cautiously turned his head and looked over his shoulder. There, behind him, four centaurs were standing; a dozen more were rolling to their feet. Zeb could also hear dozens, maybe even hundreds, more getting up.
In that instant, in the corner of his eye, he saw the lady reach into the folds of her skirt and produce a wand, or scepter or whatever it was. He whirled his arm around and with the power from a windmill swing, brought his sword smashing down on her wand. Instantly, everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
As if in a dream, he saw his sword blade continue on down, saw the front half of the wand fall and shatter on the rock they were standing on. Then everything speed-ed up again.
The witch, as he now knew she was, brought up a terrific back-handed blow, which he was barely able to block. He immediately started praying with all his might. He felt a surge of power flow through his veins. Almost before he knew it, he had knocked the witch's sword flying, and she was flat on her back on the ground.
The witch grinned at him. “Looks like you've beat fair and square, huh?” He just stared at her, keeping his swords pointed directly at her. “Now that you've beaten me, you can touch that light over there. If and when you do, there will come out good creatures to balance out the evil ones.”
He turned to look where she pointed, and just that fast, she was gone, vanished into the darkness. Where she'd pointed there was nothing, and now she was gone. He disgustedly jammed his swords back into their sheaths and turned to where the centaurs were watching him. He looked them up and down.
The four centaurs nearest to him appeared to be the leaders. They wore heavy armor. They were armed with two short swords and a long sword each. The four leaders also had full suits of armor, including chain mail, breastplate, helmet, arm guards, leather gloves, etc.
Standing off to the right of the four leaders were a couple more dozen who carried two short swords as well as a two-handed long sword, and on their backs they carried a dozen javelins each. If he remembered right those were the legendary “heavy” centaurs that his great-great-great-great grandfather had talked about. There had only been a few of them.
Suddenly, metal rang as, first the four leaders, then all the rest, drew their long swords and held them in salute. Zebulon was startled at first for a couple of reasons. One, they didn't use that salute anymore; they had changed the salute when his great-great-great grandfather had become general. Zebulon found himself surrounded by a thousand centaurs with drawn swords.
“Zebulon?” asked one of the four stepping forward.
“Yes.” Zebulon drew his sword and held it in a salute. The other centaurs sheathed their swords. Zebulon hesitated, then also sheathed his sword. He stepped forward and shook hands with the apparent leader. “And you?”
A faint smile flitted across the others face. “Centorius—leader of the third battalion in Garnock's army. At least—I was.”
“You're right about was. There isn't three battalions anymore. The army has expanded, so that there is now five battalions led by Generals Garnock, Atherton, Tace, Skylar, and myself. There is also a battalion of archers under the command of General Aubin.”
“Wow! It's really expanded. What's happened? I mean, like, are there minotaurs around any more that we're supposed to go vanquish?”
“Nope, sorry. That was several hundred years ago,” he paused, “that's why my armor is better than yours.” He grinned.
Centorius grinned and slapped him on the shoulder good-naturedly. “Let me tell you something. In my time, this was one of the best suits of armor. Course back then only battalion leaders had full body armor. As you can see, the others wore helmets, thick heavy leather vests or chain mail jackets. That's why they have those thick bulky wooden shields.”
“But what about those...what do you call them?...they're wearing full body armor.”
“Oh, those,” Centorius motioned to the heavy centaurs. “They're called heavy centaurs. They're called that because they're so heavily armed. Because they're so heavily armed, they always have both hands full, which as you can see, leaves no room for them to carry a shield.”
“How did you get here?”
“Have you heard about that, I suppose, last battle between the centaurs and minotaurs?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, me and my battalion were sent around to attack the back, but we mt up with that witch and she put this spell on us. Do you know what the outcome was of that battle?”
“Yeah, I do. You guys lost.”
“Do you know how many casualties?”
“Yeah, including you guys, twenty-five hundred were dead or wounded. They assumed you guys dead. After you didn't show after about fifteen minutes, they retreated with heavy losses. Even if you had showed up after those fifteen minutes, they would've been too far gone for it to do any good.”
“Oh.”
“So you're saying that what actually happened was that you met up with this witch, and she cast you under this spell?”
“Yep, we were galloping along to attack the back, when suddenly this lady appeared in front of me. I barely had time to stop. She said three words to me--'Rest in peace'. Then the next thing I know was that I'm coming to, and you were fighting that lady-the witch-whatever she is. But now tell me, what happened since then?”
“Lots.”
“I'll bet. Since it looks like we've got the time, why don't you tell us about it?”
“Okay. After the centaurs retreated...”
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Yasahiro rolled over in his bed. He stretched, then stood up. Six months had passed since that battle in the castle. When the other bowmen had exited, leaving him behind to defend them, he'd fought for a couple more minutes before evacuating as well. He'd raced along through an unfamiliar forest most of the night, 'til he'd fainted from exhaustion.
Now he'd waken up to find himself in an unfamiliar forest. He looked down and found out that he was still in his armor with his two swords, but something didn't feel right. He looked behind him and finally saw it—he was a human.
He saw a clearing through the trees up ahead and upon coming to it found a structure made out of wood. By the wood structure was a row of boards on end. On the other side of the boards was a little boy playing. The little boy looked up just then and stared at him. He jumped up, looking like he was near panicking, and ran inside.
A minute later, he came outside again, this time with his mom. She hesitated when she saw him, then stepped forward.
“Skandar?”
“Nope, but I know him.”
“You do?”
“Yep. He's one of the better fighters.”
“He is?”
“Yep. Uh...could I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Where are we?”
“At Skandar's house in the U.S.”
“Is that part of the Peruna?”
“Peruna? Never heard of it.”
“That's where I come from. That's also where I met Skandar.”
“Are you sure you aren't part of a movie that's filming, or an actor that has a play about a place called Peruna?”
“Yes, I'm sure. By the way—what're your names?”
“I'm Jocelyn, and this-my son-is Jake.”
“Nice to meet you, I guess.”
“You wanna come over for supper?”
“Sure. Then I can tell you my story.”
“Okay.”
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“And that's all that's happened since then?” Centorius asked.
“Yep. What are your friends' names?”
“You mean these other three?”
“Yeah.”
“The one nearest to me is Ricardo, then its Riley, then the one on the end is Gideon. The leader of the bowmen is Fletcher, and the leader of the heavy centaurs is Leon. I could name all of the heavy centaurs, but you might find that rather boring.”
“Go ahead. I heard that they're usually the ones with the far out names.”
Centorius grinned. “That's rather true. But I'll let you decide for yourself. Let's see—there's...Damon, Micheal, James, Damion, Jadin, Bradin, Alexendre, Taelon, Brian,