R. Salvatore - The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars

The one in the middle, clearly the leader, patted his thick hands in the air to quiet them. “In the morning, meaning tomorrow morning, eh?” he asked, his voice conciliatory and reasonable.

“Yes, when we join with the others,” Thaddius replied.

“Where might they be?” asked the dwarf. “Over in the farmhouses, then?”

Thaddius looked around at his allies, searching for some answer. “Aye,” he blurted. “That’s where we were to meet them, and with important news from the west. And in the morning, tomorrow morning, we’ll all gather and talk.”

The dwarves looked around at each other, a couple mumbled under their breath, too low for the monks to hear.

“Ah, but I’m losing me patience,” said the leader. “Right at dawn then, and don’t ye be late!” he spun about and slapped the dwarf near him on the shoulder, and the group started away.

“By God,” Elysant breathed a moment later. “Bloody cap dwarves!”

“We should move, and quickly,” Thaddius advised, and the two women nearest him nodded.

“No,” said Victoria, surprisingly, and when the three looked at her, they noted that she had set an arrow to her bowstring, two others stuck into the ground in easy reach. “They will be back,” she quietly and calmly whispered. “Ready your gemstones, Brother Thaddius. Diamanda, slip off to the side and put that cat’s eye circlet to use.”

“How can you know?” Elysant asked, but Victoria held up her hand to silence the woman.

On Victoria’s lead, the three slipped back a bit, to the edge of the low glow of the campfire.

And waited. Their hearts thrummed, but every passing moment seemed an eternity.

“You will stay close, but behind Elysant, Brother Thaddius,” Victoria reminded.

“I am the leader,” Thaddius replied.

“Elysant, dear sister, fall back on your training,” Victoria quietly encouraged, ignoring Thaddius. “Remember the arena. Those brothers were formidable, yet not one got a strike past the swift movements of your quarterstaff. We are ready, sister.”

“We are ready, sister,” Elysant echoed.

“Right, southeast!’ came Diamanda’s call from the side, just as the dwarves appeared again before them, four this time, weapons high and charging through the trees.

Victoria stepped forward, right before Elysant and leveled her bow, pointing out in the general direction Diamanda had indicated.

“Two fingers left,” Diamanda corrected, and Victoria shifted and let fly.

“They come!” Thaddius warned, but Diamanda noted movement in the woods and knew that her arrow had not missed the mark by much. She reached back and grabbed a second, and that, too, flew off, and this time, they heard a grunt as it struck home!

“They are here!” Thaddius cried. “Swords! Swords!”

Victoria ignored him altogether, reaching for the third arrow, trusting in her sisters.

Elysant leaped past her, back by the fire, and smashed her quarterstaff across it, launching a spray of embers into the faces of the charging dwarves. The two to the left fell back in surprise, the next in line to the right stumbled and grabbed at his stung eyes, and the one furthest right lifted an ugly knife and leaped in at the woman.

But coming behind it, beside it, and past it, with a great malachite-aided leap, came Diamanda, and she swept her hand across the side of the powrie’s face as she went, only her hand wasn’t a hand, but a great tiger’s paw. The dwarf howled, grabbed at its torn face and stumbled right into its nearest companion, who was also off-balance.

Diamanda landed and side-stepped fast as Elysant cut before her, sliding down to her knees and thrusting her staff into the midst of the tangled legs of the two dwarfs. Up she came immediately, the tip of her quarterstaff planted, and she used the leverage to pitch both the dwarves to the side.

Into the fire.

At the same time, Victoria saw her target clearly, the powrie racing in at them, an arrow sticking from one shoulder, its axe up high over its head. She shot it in the face and it fell away.

And away went the bow, too, the Disciple of St. Gwendolyn drawing the fine sword Braumin had given her, and rushing around Diamanda and Elysant to anchor the far right of the line. She warned Thaddius to keep up as she went.

“Behind Elysant!” she clarified as the brother hustled in her wake.

In mere moments, the three sisters had flanked the confused powries, shifting their entire defensive posture to the right side of the dwarf foursome.

The two in the embers scrambled up, but one took a wicked crack in the face from Elysant’s staff, the other got his arm ripped by Victoria’s sword.

The other two, though, recovered and swept around their fellows, rushing in at Diamanda, who met them with a scream and quick rush, only to feint and roll away, turning a complete circuit as Elysant swept before her, the quarterstaff banging against that strange multi-headed weapon and driving it to the side enough so that the further dwarf couldn’t get in close enough to score a hit on the retreating Diamanda.

Elysant seemed a blur of motion, then, and indeed a blur, as she called upon the shadows offered by the diamonds in her cloak.

Victoria quickly followed her, cutting in front of the second powrie on that end and stabbing at its face, but not to score a hit, for she could not. No, she simply drove it back a step, so that she could skid to a stop, reverse her footing and throw a backhand with her sword at the furthest to the right, batting down its dagger arm.

Just as Diamanda came around, her tiger’s paw raking at the dwarf’s face, then the stiffened fingers of her other hand shooting forward to jab the dwarf hard in the throat.

The dwarf staggered back, and then fell back more as starbursts erupted in its face, a series of tiny explosions from the hurled celestite crystals of Brother Thaddius. They burned and stung, smoked the dwarf’s dung-dipped beard, and poked little holes in his face.

Diamanda glanced back as she moved to keep up with Victoria, to see Thaddius fumbling with several stones, seemingly at a loss. One hand went back to his pouch where he kept the little firebombs of celestite, while in the other, he rolled several stones, in no apparent coordination.

“Brother!” she said sharply to shock him into the moment.

But she couldn’t say more than that or do more than that. Victoria roll behind Elysant, flanking her to the left and Diamanda had to move in tight to the right of the centering defensive warrior. She hoped Thaddius would have the good sense to get behind Elysant, but if not, there was nothing she could do for him.

The three dwarves came on, more angry than hurt. The fourth moved to join them, but got hit by another celestite barrage and fell back once more.

Victoria flipped her sword to her left hand and sent it out across in front of Elysant, inviting the dwarf before her to bear in, which it, predictably, did. The agile woman rolled backward, bending her knees to keep just ahead of the dagger, and as the dwarf bore in, Elysant’s staff stabbed across before him, right under the thrusting arm, and drove upward, lifting the blow harmlessly.

And under the upraised staff, to the left, went Victoria, between Elysant and the dwarf she had driven back with her sword thrust, moving into the dwarf battling Diamanda, commanding its attention with a sudden flurry and rush.

She stopped again, retreating quickly between her sisters, but the distraction was all that Diamanda needed, and out lashed the tiger’s paw, tearing skin from the dwarf’s face and shoulder.

“Ah, ye ugly runts!” the dwarf gasped, falling back.

Diamanda pursued, thinking she had a kill, but Elysant’s cry stopped her, and turned them all, to see another dwarf, an arrow in its shoulder, another in its face, rushing in at Thaddius. Elsyant dove back to intercept, but the dwarf she had blocked recognized the movement and its knife chased her and caught her, sliding into her lower back.