The snow pelted Emerald’s exposed skin, each flake feeling like a pebble shot from a sling on her face. She wore a scarf over her mouth and nose, but the area around her eyes were still open to the elements. They had been riding for a few hours now and there was still no end to the snowy fields before them.
Beside her, Sombra rode his steed just as fast, his dark hair blowing loose in the wind. Emerald glanced behind and was satisfied to see Parisa and Posey galloping along a few meters behind. Parisa looked as though she was having the time of her life, her eyes shining brightly behind the many layers of clothing that she was wearing. She was also waving, as if to get Emerald’s attention.
“In…ming!” She shouted against the wind. “Someone… this way…quick!”
“What?” Emerald slowed her horse down so that it fell in stride with Parisa’s own horse. “What are you saying?”
Parisa pulled down the scarf that had been covering her mouth. “There’s another rider incoming! On the right, hidden behind those trees!”
Emerald focused her vision and everything turned dark, with the outlines of her friends and herself in blue. There was also a flicker of red behind the trees that Parisa had pointed out.
Emerald nodded at Parisa and signalled to Sombra. He looked confused at why they were slowing down, but Emerald seemed to be agitated about something so he lessened his steed’s pace accordingly.
“What is it, Emerald?” Sombra asked.
“Someone is in pursuit of us.” Emerald directed his attention through the trees. “Whoever they are, they mean us harm.”
“It is but one person?” Sombra stopped Stormchaser in his tracks. “Then we shall face them. Perhaps it is but a bandit.”
“Tis no bandit.” Posey removed her bow from around her back. Gabriel squawked something under her arm. “Gabriel apologizes for not being able to fly in this weather. Perhaps we might’ve seen them coming if he were in the air.”
“Whoever it is, they’re about to realize how big of a mistake it is to attack us…” Sombra growled.
There was no more time to speak, for just after Sombra close his mouth, a mighty horse burst through into sight, and on its back was someone who made Emerald’s heart race.
“Sir Boercival…” Emerald breathed.
The Knight of the Round Table bore down on them, his legendary blade unsheathed and shimmering with golden light. The same radiance shone from the visor of his helmet and Emerald knew that this was it. They had to defeat him now, or Prance would fall to Morn’s Unified army.
Posey loosed a shaft at Boercival, the arrow glancing off his breastplate and spinning off into the snow.
“Scatter!” Sombra shouted, the sound of his voice galvanizing the group into action. The four of them split up and Boercival’s charge missed, but the knight turned his steed around swiftly and resumed his assault. He raised his blade to the sky and twisting tree roots thrashed around Emerald’s horse’s legs, but the animal leapt over the tendrils at the last moment.
Sombra launched shadowy bolts at Boercival, who held up his shield to block them. The shield was seriously dented, but the knight remained safe.
Boercival charged at Posey, holding his blade out to spear her with its tip. Posey leapt out of the saddle and loosed an arrow at Boercival mid-jump. This time the shaft flew true and nailed Boercival in the shoulder, right between the breastplate and the pauldron. This made Boercival flinch, the knight tipping to the side in the saddle for a moment before reaching up and snapping the arrow off with his shield arm.
Boercival is indeed mighty. Emerald thought. Or at least the enchantments placed on him are. A shot like that would have felled any lesser rider.
Still, the arrowhead would cause Boercival some amount of pain. Whether he would feel it was a mystery, as Emerald had no knowledge of how deep Morn’s enchantments ran.
Sombra spurred his horse up behind Boercival and delivered an upwards slash with his sword. The blade raked against Boercival’s armor, causing the knight to pitch forward and bang his head on the front of his saddle, his helmet protecting him from the impact.
Boercival’s stance tightened and summoned more roots to ensnare Sombra. The roots whipped at Sombra’s horse, but suddenly a handful of packed snow flew into Boercival’s face, blocking up his visor.
“Take that!” Parisa screeched, scooping up another snowball to throw.
Boercival’s shield hand scrabbled at his obscured visor as he tried to clear his line of sight. As soon as he did, another snowball smacked into his face, this one larger than the last. Parisa’s onslaught of snowballs continued, unbalancing the knight long enough for Posey to shoot him in the space between his helmet and his collar. The arrow grazed Boercival’s neck and opened up a line of blood, then Emerald leapt off her own horse with a shout and tackled him into the snow.
For a moment, both Emerald and Boercival struggled on the ground, kicking up plumes of white powder as they fought.
Boercival was no pushover, even without his horse. He thrust his sword Laevateinn at Emerald, but she grabbed the blade and pushed it aside, her hand protected by the layer of mail that covered her palm and fingers.
Emerald unfurled her hidden blade, but then something slammed into her from behind and knocked her off Boercival. She spat out snow and turned to see Boercival’s horse, rearing up over her, its eyes shining gold as well.
Morn controls the animals too?
Before she had a chance to react, Boercival smashed a foot into her chest and she fell back as he rose, snow falling off his purplish armor as he pointed his blade tip at her. With a roar, Sombra swung his scimitar at him from behind, but Boercival bent slightly and moved his sword around his back, swinging it up to block the attack before bringing it back up over his head. Sombra dodged back, but the blade still managed to nick him across the right brow and the temporary pain distracted him from Boercival’s next attack, which was to drive his sword through the king’s cloak, narrowly missing his chest.
“Hey! You cut that out!” Parisa hurled another snowball, this one impacting the back of Boercival’s head with a loud clunk.
Posey stayed out of melee range, an arrow nocked to the string, but she dared not fire it while Sombra and Boercival were so close together. With the treacherous wind, she couldn’t be completely sure of her aim.
Finally Sombra let loose with a blast of dark magic in a circle around himself. Boercival staggered back and raised his sword, but Posey took her shot and the arrow struck Boercival’s hand, and the thrust that was meant for Sombra was pushed off-course. Posey drew another arrow from her quiver and fired again, but this time Boercival brought up his damaged shield and blocked her shot. The knight turned and began to run towards Posey, intent on cutting her down.
Emerald Edge jumped up behind Boercival, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him still, while Sombra conjured ribbons of shadow that curled around Boercival’s arms and legs, pinning him in place. The former pegasus deployed her hidden blades, but her arms were at the wrong angle to stab with. The blades scraped across Boercival’s helmet but did not penetrate the toughened steel.
But Boercival was not to be denied. His sword glowed gold and roots burst through the ground around him, thrashing about and trying to dislodge his bonds.
Emerald held on with all her might, even though the strain threatened to tear her arms loose. Sombra was knocked prone by a wayward root and sprawled into the snow, leaving only Emerald to restrain the knight.
Boercival jerked his head back and his helmet banged into Emerald’s nose, and the former pegasus saw stars. Boercival did it again, and Emerald’s arms began to come loose. Boercival hit her with his helmet once more, and finally Emerald could not hold on any longer. Her fingers dragged across the knight’s helmet as she fell back, and she fell into the snow just as there was a muffled twang.
The spymaster lay there, too stunned to do anything other than wait for her vision to clear. But oddly, Boercival did not press the attack. Emerald blinked the lights out of her eyes and looked up. Boercival was standing there, his back to her and reaching up to his neck with his shield arm. The knight swayed gently, then collapsed onto his side in the snow. Laevateinn dropped from his fingers and its glow began to dim.
Emerald got to her feet, and ignoring her bleeding nose, slowly approached Boercival to see what had happened to him.
In the space between his gorget and his helmet, Boercival’s neck had been pierced by one of Posey’s arrows. His headbutting her on his back must have exposed his throat to a shot from the archer, and her aim had been deadly true. A steady stream of scarlet ran from the wound, staining the snow beneath him a deep crimson.
“Good shooting, Posey,” Sombra said, coming over to the rest of them now that the roots were no longer holding him back. Parisa also joined them, still gripping a snowball and eyeing Boercival suspiciously.
“I wouldn’t have been able to make it if not for Emerald’s distraction,” Posey slung her bow back over her shoulder. “One more Knight of the Round Table down, I suppose.”
Emerald did not respond. She knelt down next to Boercival and slowly took his helmet off, revealing his face, a face that Emerald had shared adventures and quests with, a face that she had seen for five years every day at the round table back in Canterlot. While Boercival had been taciturn, she still felt a deep sadness inside herself at the loss of a former brother in arms and comrade. The fact that he had been forced to become her enemy by another fellow knight only drove the hurt in deeper.
By the looks of things, Boercival had died almost instantly when Posey had shot him. His face now was pale and still, with glazed eyes and a slack expression.
“Goodbye, Sir Boercival,” Emerald whispered. “I am glad to have known you.”
The other three gave Emerald a good long while to mourn. Then Sombra gently put his hand on her shoulder.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Sombra said softly. “But we must hasten to Prance, or risk losing everything we have fought for already. Let us bury the knight, then be on our way. It’s… it’s what he would have wanted us to do.”
The group took a little time to dig a grave for Boercival. The knight’s horse was nowhere to be found, so Emerald hoped that it had perhaps shaken off Morn’s control and found somewhere safe to stay. With the snowy winds howling all around, the four questors buried Boercival in his armor, using his now powerless blade as a grave marker. Even now the piling snow gathered around the makeshift tombstone, covering it in white flakes.
“Nobody will know what happened here…” Emerald murmured. “No one will remember this battle and what it meant.”
“We’ll remember,” Parisa said. “And we’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about it.”
“We will.” Emerald looked around their landscape.
She unsheathed her blade and grabbed one of the many roots Boercival had conjured. She scratched into it and planted beside Laevateinn before composing herself and continuing the journey with the rest of her friends.
On it, as the snow fell softly around Boercival’s grave, it read, “Sir Boercival, Wielder of the Laevateinn, a true hero to his people. May he soar ever on at the top of his roots, free forever.”