by H. A. Harvey
While Ikoz picked men off the length of the cliff, Ellia stood guard at the trailhead. Her eyes obviously sharper in the starlight than Nian’s, she let fly several arrows into the shadows, each met with an answering cry of pain. She spun behind the trunk of the nearest tree as answering arrows and bolts sang out into the night sky around her, and snapped off another arrow along the ledge in time to catch the back of a soldier emerging behind Ikoz. She hung her bow on a low branch and spun, drawing her twin light blades just quick enough to deflect the spear thrust of a soldier emerging onto the trailhead with a companion circling to the high-ground above. Turning the spearhead to bury itself deep in the earth below the higher position, Ellia leapt up and, bracing off the man’s shoulder with her foot, somersaulted up the shaft of his weapon to scissor her legs around those of the flanking man. With a cry of surprise, her victim tumbled into the spearman, carrying them both crashing down the side of the cliff.
“Balance is life.” Rowan murmured from beside Nian, “I’ve never seen an elf fight, it’s like a dance.”
“Well, before tonight, how many people have you seen fight at all?” Nian joked, trying to sound less impressed than he was.
“Like two brawls at your place and I saw a couple hunters go after each other with knives over traps once.” Rowan shrugged, “Still, she’s somethin’ to watch work.”
“Well she can’t keep that up all night, I’m certain,” Kolel interjected as he and Riona ran over to meet the others under the trees. “As much as you boys might like to ogle a bit longer, I think they’ve done their job.”
“And we need to get to ours,” Ulif grunted as Amalthea stood on his lap and bound his shoulder tightly. “Our quarry will have heard the fighting. It’s time to run them down.”
Ulif gave a whistle and turned to lead the others into the wood. Above, Ellia cast a thin line out into one of the lower trees and, securing the end with a quick hitch, leapt upon it and ran along its length. As she neared halfway down the line, Ikoz leapt out of the shadows and sailed low over the canopy below. Then, as Nian was turning to follow the rest of the motley pack, his eye caught a tall, lanky shadow step out at the head of the trail and loose a javelin along the line of the elf’s cable. Xain apparently saw him as well, and snapped off a bolt, catching the shadow in what seemed to be the head. The dwarf cursed under his breath as the javelin sailed on in its path, striking Ellia firmly between the shoulder blades and sending her hurtling forward into the tree’s foliage.
“Damned Kraal,” Xain spit, “Only thing can see in dark better’n Dwarves.”
Nian ran with Rowan and the dwarf over to the treeline where Ellia had vanished. She lay crumpled in the shadows at the trunk, the javelin’s head and broken haft still running through her chest. The elfess smiled groggily as Rowan and Nian crouched to either side of her. Xain frowned as he crouched near her head and examined the javelin.
“Her fall drove javelin through breastbone.” He grumbled, “Taking out will tear her apart.”
Nian lifted his hand to hover next to the bloody point of the weapon. “I have one left, we can be quick.”
“Rowan. . .” Ellia forced a hoarse whisper and a smile “I think . . . you just may have to go . . . see Noorwood on your own.”
“Plant knees on her shoulders,” Xain directed the boys, “Nian be ready with Hand of Kadia.”
Nian blinked, “With what?”
The dwarf shrugged, “Makes for better song than flashy star hand. Now, ready?”
Xain’s heavy hands curled around the protruding tip, and when both boys nodded, he planted his feet to either side of Ellia’s chest and hauled back hard. At first, nothing happened other than an agonized writhe from Ellia as blood was forced out her mouth and nostrils. Then, with a sickening crack, the broken end of the javelin slid free of her chest so quickly that Xain tumbled over backwards, chased by a spray of dark ichor. Nian slammed his hand forward onto Ellia’s convulsing chest, invoking Kadia’s name the third and final time.
Nian trembled at the sickening feeling as bone drew itself back beneath skin under his hand. He felt the breath of Ellia’s chest still even as bone and skin knit itself together, sealing the hole torn by the javelin. He watched her eyes, lit by the smallest patch of starlight filtered through the leaves overhead. They stared, glassy and hollow, reflecting the distant lights against the dark of night. For an endless moment, all was silent. The soldiers above seemed to have stopped their pursuit, and the footfalls of the other cubs were lost in the distance. The three companions sat bathed in blood, staring in sorrowful reverence at Ellia’s still form.
“Nian,” Rowan finally forced himself to speak, “The wizard said some wounds are too deep, even for magic.”
“No.” Nian hissed, “No, she saved me tonight . . . I have to save her.”
He forced his hand against the elf’s smooth flesh where the cut had been, calling out the Maiden’s name two, then three times. Finally, Xain stood and lifted the boy to his feet with Rowan’s help.
“Not how things work, boy. Magic is gone.” He pushed Nian on a bit more forcefully, “Others need our help or more die tonight.”
Reluctantly, Nian backed along with Xain’s urging, unslinging his shield and drawing his sword when he finally turned away from the gristly scene. He suddenly stopped short at the sound of sticks cracking behind him. He whirled to rush the soldiers creeping up through the shadows, only to blink in amazement as he saw Ellia stiffly rolling to her knees. Nian let out a cry and embraced the tall elf, sobbing tears of relief into her bosom. For her part, Ellia awkwardly returned the embrace as she took in her surroundings, apparently more than a little confused.
“Ah, Master Nian?” Ellia finally whispered politely, “I am most certainly glad to be seen as you seem glad to see me . . . and you are my favorite employer to date. However, I . . . prefer not to be quite so intimate with my clients.”
Nian hastily released her, glad that the night hid his blush, at least until he remembered that everyone there saw much better in the dark than he. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and tried to summon a casual explanation, though he succeeded in little more than a few disjointed syllables of gibberish.
“Now . . . my most sincere apologies for putting us at the back of the run.” Ellia was quick to don her characteristically demure smile, “Shall we make up for it?”
. . .
“Damn this prisoner nonsense! I say let’s crush their skulls and make time to the rally point.”
“You don’t get a say, Oscar, because you don’t have half a brain. The girls all go to tha Baron’s coffers or his chambers more likely. We ain’t gonna see scat from that part, jus’ bout barely keep our heads endin’ up short like we were. This lot don’ matter t’ nobody, an’ the quarry’s on the way t’ our rally point.”
David struggled to keep his feet in the dark of the forest as he listened to the slavers bicker their way through the trees. His captors had become more chatty since crossing the great road and offloading the wagon and mounts. He hoped that along with their tongues, their discipline might loosen enough for him to get one good shot at their leader. Karen’s face was still burned into his mind, twisted in agony as he grasped at her limp fingers. If it was to be his last act, he would tear that villain’s throat out with his teeth if need be. The anger was all that fueled him at this point, ignoring his torn feet and tired, battered limbs in the hopes of just a single window to act.
All at once, captors and captives pulled up short as a cry of pain and terror floated across the valley, then went eerily silent. As they stood with ears trained, sounds came from back near the ledge of more fighting, mostly more shouts of pain. The captain scowled and signaled, and the slavers hauled forward on the chain and broke out in a run. Their scout, Kellin, dropped back and ran to the side in the woods.
The others seemed to join in the run more from habit than anything else,
but not David. He felt his moment coming and was not going to let the captain slip away. He pushed every fiber of himself into driving forward, his gaze intent on the scarred face ahead of him. As they left the line of trees onto a narrow clearing before the ground fell away in a black abyss, David was only a few strides behind his prey. Suddenly, he cursed inwardly as a man behind him collapsed, dragging the rest on the chain down with him.
“Forget the blasted slaves!” Cried the captain, “Crush one’s skull so they can’t move and leave them.”
The decision seemed to come too late, as an Orc exploded from the trees behind them, holding high a great winged axe. The man farthest to the rear spun to meet the Orc, bringing his slaver’s club across the creature’s face with such force that it staggered him to one side. The tide of the fight shifted instantly as the slaver came around for the finishing stroke, only to have his weapon caught mid swing by one of the Orc’s brawny hands. David looked on in amazement as the Orc’s skin tightened over muscles that swelled and coiled beneath, and he swore the orc’s eyes took on a bloody glow. David recognized the Orc’s rough speech from his tutor’s lessons on Barrens Folk.
“Idiot.” The Orc punctuated this guttural word by bringing his winged axe up in a one-handed stroke that drove the heavy blade up through the man’s groin to his navel, lifting him bodily off the ground before depositing him with a wet thud in the grass at his side. “Never just wound an Orc.”
The Orc took the cudgel in his free hand and let out a soul-wilting war cry as he surged forward at the rear rank of slavers. A pair of small knives whipped past the orc’s right side, one biting a man’s thigh and bringing him to the ground, while the other bit a second in the gut through his jerkin. From the left, a javelin sailed from the night and pierced the collar of a man running along the edge of the cliff, sending him tumbling into the blackness below.
Two of the slavers that had been managing the chain-gang approached, lifting their clubs to execute their captain’s orders. In that instant, a reptilian shadow plummeted from the night sky, burying sharp, scissored blades into each side of one’s chest. Without pause, the Buros rolled under the swiping blow of the second and buried a katar deep into his upper abdomen. The acrobatic savior tore the key ring from his second victim’s belt, tossing it to David before leaping up into the night again.
As the Buros reached the top of his jump and spread his webbed arms to glide away, an arrow sang low over the heads of the slavers from Kellin’s bow, burying itself deep in the reptilian attacker’s chest. He watched as his wounded rescuer crashed into the earth and rolled to lay halfway between himself and the dark pit of the quarry.
David hurried to unlock the other captives. Looking about, he noted that, though several more of their mysterious benefactors had arrived and several slavers had scattered back into the woods, the numbers still favored his captors to a large degree. The slavers seemed to note this as well, and were starting to move to encircle their foes and cut them off from each other.
As David unlocked the last of his fellow prisoners, the captain rushed over to finish the fallen Buros, his club descending on the wounded man’s back with a bone-cracking thud. David scooped up the far end of the chain and rushed the captain, whipping the few feet of the end like a great flail across the foul man’s weapon arm. As the captain recoiled in surprise, David leapt onto his back, wrapping his shackled wrists and a length of chain around the man’s thick neck.
“I told you,” David hissed through gritted teeth, “I’d kill you, bastard.”
In answer, the captain drew a long knife from his belt, driving it back to bite deep into David’s side. As blinding pain exploded out from the wound, David felt his limbs threaten to loose their hold on the captain. Roaring in anger, David hauled back on the chain with all his might and dove with his captive into the black pit of the quarry.
. . .
Nian crashed into another tree with a muffled curse. The others had vanished into the darkness toward the growing cacophony of fighting somewhere ahead. He couldn’t fault them for leaving him, the others needed support as soon as possible . . . but he quietly lamented to himself the fact that everyone else seemed to be so much better at sprinting blind through this obstacle course. Nian reminded himself that more than half of them weren’t blind, and could see perfectly fine by starlight or even in complete darkness.
He was so wrapped in his thoughts that Nian nearly failed to note the sudden rush of motion to his side as he passed a thick tree trunk. He brought his shield up only just in time to keep an iron-shot club from crashing into his face. Unfortunately, he forgot in his panic to keep his arm flexed, and his shield battered his face instead. While diminished, the blow was still enough to daze Nian, depositing him on his rump in a patch of starlight on the forest floor. Nian realized suddenly that he had dropped his sword as the slaver’s hulking shadow stalked towards him from beneath the tree.
“Well,” A somewhat familiar voice chuckled in a deep accent. “If it aren’t tha runt wit’ tha apple branch. I tot sure ya crawl’d off’n doid summer in tha mists. Well, no mist now, is dere runt?” The man stalked closer, bending to scoop up Nian’s fallen blade, “Oh, wut we got ‘ere then? A new twig, an’ steel? Youz don’ moind if I holds ont’ it? Youz won’ be needin’ it fer much longer now.”
The slaver swung both weapons down at Nian. He brought his shield up to catch the sword, but the club bit into the meaty part of his leg, sending shooting pain up and down the length of him. His assailant brought the club back across, battering Nian’s shield up and to the side, where the slaver pinned it to the ground with a heavy boot. As the man stood over him in the starlight, Nian marked with disappointment that the man’s face seemed to have healed, more or less, from the thrashing he’d given him in Longmyst. He’d somehow hoped that his killer would be forced to bear some evidence of his valor on to his next victim.
As the man curled back to strike the final blow, Nian glared defiantly back up at him, ready. Then, one of the soldiers from atop the cliff leapt onto the man’s back, sending the blade flying into the darkness. It took a moment for Nian to recognize Riona’s short, blonde tresses as she stabbed wildly, if ineffectively at the man’s shoulders with a small knife and bit at his face. The man wheeled about under her wild assault before collecting himself enough to leap back against a tree, smashing the girl against the rough bark. He spun Riona from his shoulders and drove a knee deep into her abdomen before cuffing her roughly to the ground.
The distraction had bought Nian enough time to regain his feet, and he slammed the flat of his shield into the man’s face, driving all his weight into the strike. The slaver reeled backward and a second crash from Nian’s shoulder behind the shield toppled him to the ground. Nian sprang over the man and brought the edge of the shield down on his face like a great, blunt axe. He kept up the assault until his arm refused to raise the shield another time, and the boy sank back against the tree gasping.
When his wind returned, Nian stood shakily and eyed the slaver’s body. He felt sick, but somehow powerful at the same time. He hoped quietly to himself that he could manage to best his next opponent without a woman arriving in the nick of time to save him. The thought reminded him of Riona, and he staggered over to her. Finding her breathing, but unconscious, he kicked around in the leaves until he found his sword, then went back to help her up. She stirred groggily as he lifted her shoulders and helped her stand.
“Where did you get a knife?” He’d wanted to ask if she was alright, but her help didn’t change what she had done, and somehow that fact stopped him from voicing any concern for her health.
“It was in the boot . . . the soldier’s I guess.”
. . .
By the time Nian staggered out of the woods with Riona in tow, the fighting was over. Thirty two of the slavers lay dead, along with three of the wolf cubs. Turev’s axe had hewn down five of the enemy, but he had been borne do
wn by three others and battered before the other wolves could reach him. Ikasi, a quiet man from the Wheelward reaches of the Avan Empire, had apparently run afoul of a small group of escaping raiders and was overwhelmed, though not before dragging two into the afterlife with him. Nian wished he’d learned more about the odd little man with his loose-fitting silk robes. The final casualty was Ikoz, who they found wedged between two heavy boulders, the heavy slave chain wound around his arm and waist. They found the chain still pulled taught trying to drag the slight reptile through the rocks. Suspended on the end they found David, his arms pulled out of joint when his fall stopped, but apparently faring better than the captain, from whom the coils wrapped around his head had torn bloody shreds of flesh, but his body was lost into the depths of the quarry.
Ulif suggested they draw into the shelter of the woods to bury the dead, lick their wounds, and rest before setting out to intercept the wagon. Nian was in no mood to argue, and felt he wanted to consult Kolel’s map before setting off at any rate. They found a tight stand of trees Spireward from their tracks through the wood. Nian stumbled upon a soft patch of earth nestled between the roots of a large old tree and sank onto his back, letting exhaustion finally take hold while others debated where to start the fire.
Nian lay with his eyes closed, enjoying the cool earth beneath him. He listened to the mercenaries and rescued captives around him. They sounded cheerful, elated even at their victory, despite the loss of good friends. He imagined for a moment that he was home, and around him old friends mingled with new while he lay out under the apple trees drinking in the happy occasion. Somewhere upstairs his sister was getting ready, about to float out in her lovely gown. Suddenly, Autumn was standing over him, wearing a gown of turning leaves and smiling down at him. She sank down beside him, slowly draping herself across his chest and leg. Nian marveled at how real, how soft she felt. He knew he must be dreaming, but it was too charming a vision to chase off simply because of that.