A leering kobold took a swipe from the edge of her blade across its throat and spiralled away. Another jumped in to take its place. As it raised its sword she darted under it, dealing two rapid stabs to the heart. It collapsed. A third raider appeared in front of her, holding a spear. It was too far away to engage with her daggers, too close for a throw. She stepped back, transfixed by the menacing, barbed spearhead.
From behind, a hatchet came down heavily on the creature’s shoulder. With an eruption of blood and sinew, it severed the kobold’s spear arm from its trunk. Wailing terribly, the raider fell.
Hefting his gore-spattered axe, Jup ran forward to join her.
“We can’t take much more of this!”
he yelled.
“Keep killing!”
They fought back to back.
Alfray kicked out at a kobold on foot, while simultaneously crossing swords with another, alongside on its kirgizil. The lizard was snapping at Alfray’s spooked horse, and it was all he could do to keep it in check. Nearby, two orc grunts were cutting a lone raider to ribbons.
Haskeer’s newly retrieved sword was dashed away by a passing kobold rider. Another raider immediately loomed up, sneering evilly at the Wolverine’s empty hands. Its scimitar flashed. Haskeer ducked. The blade whistled overhead. Diving at his opponent, Haskeer drove his massive fist into its face. With his free hand he caught the wrist of the bandit’s sword arm and squeezed until the bones popped. The kobold shrieked. Haskeer resumed pounding at its face until it let go of the sword. Scooping it up, he ran the creature through.
Far gone in bloodlust, he turned to an adjacent mounted enemy. The kobold had its back to him, preoccupied with a fight on its other side. Haskeer dragged it from the viper and set to battering it. Its slender arms and legs snapped like dry kindling under the onslaught.
A bellowing grunt tumbled past, swatted by a kirgizil’s tail. He collided with a brawling mass of combatants. Orcs and kobolds went down in a tangle of thrashing limbs.
The last ambusher blocking Stryke’s path proved skilful as well as obstinate. Instead of hacking and slashing, Stryke was embroiled in something like a fencing match.
As his foe’s mount was lower than Stryke’s, the Wolverine commander had to lean over to clash blades. That disadvantage, along with the kobold’s adeptness at swordplay, made it difficult penetrating the creature’s guard. Every blow was parried, each stroke countered.
After a full minute of stalemate, the kobold’s blade was the one to break through. It gashed Stryke’s upper arm, spraying blood.
Enraged, he renewed his attack with fresh energy. He showered blows on the raider, seeking to overcome its skill with sheer force. The ceaseless buffeting lacked finesse, and the strokes were scarcely aimed, but soon paid dividends. In the face of the lashing storm, the kobold’s defences weakened, its reactions slowed.
Stryke’s blade sliced through one of the creature’s upswept ears. It shrieked. The next pass laid open its shoulder, bringing forth an anguished howl.
Then Stryke landed a vicious blow to the side of the bandit’s head and ended it.
Panting, his limbs afire from exertion, he slumped in his saddle. There were no more kobolds on the trail ahead.
Something jolted his horse from behind. The steed bolted. Before he could turn, he felt an impact against his back. A clawed hand snaked around his body and dug painfully into his chest. Hot breath prickled the nape of his neck. The other hand appeared, clutching a curved dagger, and made for his throat. He grabbed the wrist and checked its upward transit.
The horse was running, unrestrained. From the corner of his eye, Stryke saw a riderless kirgizil passing them: the mount his attacker must have leapt from.
Stryke twisted the wrist he held, intent on breaking it. At the same time he repeatedly jabbed the elbow of his other arm into the kobold’s solar plexus. He heard a guttural moan. The dagger slipped from its hand and fell away.
Another mounted bandit appeared at his side. It was waving a scimitar.
He kicked out, his boot thudding against the creature’s wiry shoulder. The momentary loss of concentration loosened his grip on the kobold at his back. Its hands quickly withdrew. Stryke jabbed his elbow again, sinking it deep in flesh. Once more he aimed a kick at the mounted raider. This time he missed.
His horse thundered on. The kobold on the viper kept pace, and drew ahead a little.
Now the tiny, loathsome hands were eagerly scrabbling at Stryke’s belt. He managed to half turn and lash out at the unwanted passenger. His knuckles struck its face, but ineffectually.
Avidly, the hands encircled his waist again, probing, searching. And he realised what the bandit was after.
The cylinder.
No sooner had the thought occurred than the kobold reached its goal. With a triumphant hiss, it seized the artifact and pulled it free.
As he felt the prize being tugged away, it seemed to Stryke that time slowed, became pliable, stretching the following instant to an eternity.
Laggard-paced, as though seen with a dreamer’s eye, several things happened at once.
He caught the horse’s flailing reins and yanked on them with all his might. The steed’s head whiplashed back. A great shudder ran through its body.
The mounted kobold slowly rose in its saddle, arm outstretched, taloned hand open.
An object sailed leisurely over Stryke’s right shoulder. It turned end over end, burnished surface briefly flashing reflected sunlight as it descended.
Time’s frantic tempo returned.
The rider snatched the cylinder from the air.
Stryke’s horse went down.
He hit the ground first, rolling the width of the trail. The kobold sitting behind fetched up a dozen paces away. Vision swimming, breath knocked out of him, Stryke watched as his horse struggled to its feet and galloped off. It headed for the far end of the gully, the same direction as the raider bearing the cylinder.
A groan came from the kobold that had fallen with him. Possessed of a berserk frenzy, Stryke stumbled over to the creature and vented his anger. Kneeling on its chest, he reduced its face to a bloody pulp with the hammering of his fists.
The air was rent by a keening, high-pitched blast of sound.
He looked up. Well clear by now, the escaping bandit held a slender, copper-coloured horn to its lips.
As the intonation reached the raiders engaging Coilla and Jup, they backed off and began to run.
Jup took a last, wide swing at his fleeing opponent and shouted, “Look!”
All the kobolds were withdrawing. Most retreated on foot; some dashed to mount loose kirgizils. They ran and rode in the direction of the gully’s entrance, or up its steep sides. A handful of orcs harried the escaping creatures, but most were licking their wounds.
Coilla saw Stryke loping towards them. “Come on!” she said.
They rushed to meet him.
“The cylinder!”
he raged, half demented.
No further explanation was necessary. It was obvious what had happened.
Jup carried on along the trail, legs pumping, a hand shading his eyes as he peered into the distance. He made out the kirgizil and its rider, climbing the wall of the gully at its far end. As he watched, they reached the top. They were outlined against the sky for a second before disappearing.
He trotted back to Stryke and Coilla.
“Gone,” he reported baldly.
Stryke’s face was black with fury. Without a word to either of them, he turned and headed for the rest of the band. Corporal and sergeant exchanged barren glances and followed.
Where the fighting had been most intense the ground was littered with kobold dead and wounded, downed horses and kirgizils. At least half a dozen orcs had more than superficial injuries, but were still on their feet. One was stretched on the ground and being tended by comrades.
Sighting their commander, the Wolverines moved to him.
Stryke marched to Alfray, eyes blazing. “Casualties?” he barked.
“Give me a chance, I’m still checking.”
“Well,
roughly
, then.” The tone was menacing. “You’re supposed to double as our combat physician;
report
.”
Alfray glowered. But he wasn’t about to challenge the Captain in his present mood. “Looks like no loss of life. Though Meklun yonder’s in a bad way.” He nodded at the downed trooper. “Others took deep wounds, but can stand.”
Haskeer, wiping blood from his chin, said, “Lucky as devils, us.”
Stryke glared at him. “
Lucky?
Those bastards took the cylinder!”
Palpable shock ran through the band.
“Thieving little
fuckers
,” Haskeer responded indignantly. “Let’s get after ’em!”
The Wolverines chorused approval.
“Think!”
Stryke bellowed. “By the time we’ve cleared this shambles, rounded up the horses, tended our wounded—”
“Why not send a small party after them now, and the rest can follow?” Coilla suggested.
“They’d be well outnumbered, and those kirgizils can go where we can’t. The trail’s cold already!”
“But what good is it if we wait until we sort ourselves?” Alfray put in. “Who knows where they’ve gone?”
“There’s plenty of their wounded lying about,” Haskeer reminded them. “I say we make ’em tell us.” He slipped out a knife and flicked his finger against its edge to underline the point.
“Can
you
speak their infernal language?” Stryke demanded. “Can
any
of you?” They shook their heads. “No, I thought not. So torture’s hardly the answer, is it?”
“We should never have entered this valley without scouting it first,” Haskeer grumbled lowly.
“I’m just in the mood for your griping,” Stryke told him, his expression like flint. “If you’ve got something to say about how I’m leading this band, let’s hear it now.”
Haskeer held up his hands in a placating gesture. “No, chief.” He turned on an empty grin. “Just . . . thinking aloud.”
“Thinking’s not your strong point, Sergeant. Leave it to me. And that goes for
all
of you!”
A tense silence descended. Alfray broke it. “What do you want us to do, Captain?” he asked.
“Find as many horses as we can, for a start. If Meklun can’t ride, make a litter for him.” He bobbed his head at the carnage. “Don’t leave any kobolds alive. Cut their throats. Get on with it.”
The Wolverines melted away.
Coilla remained, looking at him.
“Don’t say it,” he told her. “I know. If we don’t get that damn thing back for Jennesta, we’re as good as dead.”
Jennesta stood on the highest balcony of her palace’s tallest tower.
The eastern ocean was to her back. She looked north-west, where curling yellow mist rose over Taklakameer, the inland sea. Beyond that, she could just make out the city spires of Urrarbython, on the margin of the Hojanger wastelands. In turn, Hojanger eventually gave way to the ice field dominating the horizon, bathed by a crimson sun.
To Jennesta it resembled a frozen tidal wave of blood.
An icy breeze swept in, acute as a blade, stirring the heavy cerise drapes on the balcony’s entrance. She wrapped the cloak of milky-hued sabrewolf pelts tighter around herself. Autumnal conditions belied the season, and each passing year was worse.
The advancing glaciers and frigid winds were harbingers of the encroaching humans, ever expanding their hold, tearing the heart from the land, interfering with the balance.
Eating Maras-Dantia’s magic.
She heard that in the south, where they were most densely concentrated and sorcery worked poorly if at all, humans had even abandoned the hallowed name and taken to calling the world Centrasia. At least the Unis had, and they were still more numerous than the Manis.
Not for the first time, she fell to wondering what her mother, Vermegram, would have made of the schism. There was no doubt she would favour the Followers of the Manifold Path. After all, they adhered to pantheistic tenets remarkably similar to those of the elder races. Which was why Jennesta herself supported their cause, and would continue to do so for as long as it suited her. But whether her mother, a nyadd, would have approved of Jennesta actually siding with incomers was a moot point. Notwithstanding Vermegram’s human consort.
And what of him? Would Jennesta’s father have approved of Unity and its nonsensical monotheistic creed?
Whenever she dwelt on these matters she always came up against the ambiguity of her hybrid origins. Inevitably, that led to thoughts of Adpar and Sanara, and anger rose.
She brought her mind back to the artifact. It was the key to her ambitions, to victory, and it was slipping out of her grasp.
Turning, she entered the chamber.
An attendant stepped forward and took her cloak. Slimly built, almost petite, the servant was pallid-skinned and dainty of face. The sandy hair, powder-blue eyes with long golden lashes, button nose and sensuous lips were typically androgynous.
The servant was new, and Jennesta was still uncertain whether the creature was predominantly male or female. But everyone had that problem with elves.
“General Kysthan is here, Your Majesty,” he or she announced in a piping, sing-song voice. “He, er, has been waiting for some time.”
“Good. I’ll see him now.”
The elf ushered in the visitor, bowed discreetly and left.
Kysthan was probably in late middle-age, as far as she could tell, and in orc terms, distinguished-looking. He had ramrod-backed military bearing. An accumulation of criss-crossed tattoos on both cheeks recorded his rise through the ranks. His expression spoke of unease, and not a little apprehension.
There were no opening formalities.
“I can see from your face that they haven’t come back,” she said, regal displeasure barely in check.
“No, Your Majesty.” He failed to meet her eyes. “Perhaps they ran into greater opposition than expected.”
“Reports from the battle don’t indicate that.”
He made no reply.
“What do you propose doing about it?”
“A detachment will be sent with all speed to find out what’s happened to them, my lady.”