James West - Shadow and Steel

Damoc rounded on the stone-faced Brother. “My forefathers mistook them for blessed beings, gods among men. It is a mistake I once shared. No more. This day, the Fauthians will be scoured from memory!”

Another cheer went up, along with the brandishing of bows and swords. Belina gave Leitos an unreadable look, but he sensed her apprehension. Nola seemed no less hesitant than her father.

“So you mean to march straight into the heart of the city,” Ulmek asked with a mystified snort. “That is your plan? ”

“My only strategy is to chop the Fauthians into stew meat,” Damoc boasted. “After that, I mean to break my fast on the fare of my oppressors. The sooner done, the better, for I grow hungry.” Damoc clapped hands with his warriors, celebrating as if the battle had already been won.

Ulmek cast Leitos a sideways look. “This fool will may well win the day-Pa’amadin, on occasion, will favor idiots with a bit of luck-but after that you and I, along with Sumahn and Daris, and all the Brothers we can free, will leave these Yatoans to their fate, and make for the shore we landed upon.”

Leitos glanced at Belina, and Ulmek caught his arm, drawing his attention. “We cannot be divided on this. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Leitos answered reluctantly.

“We will attack in three separate lines,” Damoc was saying to his attentive warriors. “Do not stop until every Fauthian and Kelren is dead. And trust that whoever finds Adu’lin and brings him to me alive, will be well rewarded.”

Sumahn and Daris had come closer to Ulmek and Leitos, and Sumahn shook his head. “We should just leave them, here and now. We know where Ba’Sel and the others are being held, and should go to them straight away, and then-”

“What is that?” Daris interrupted, pointing toward the east. Four heads turned to observe a man running in their direction, frantically waving a Fauthian sword overhead. A shout drifted across the distance, and though the words were indistinguishable, the voice was not.

“My father!” Leitos cried. He jumped to his feet, as the Yatoans spun to peer at the closing figure. Those with bows nocked arrows, and made ready to fire.

“Hold, damn you!” Ulmek growled. “He is one of us.”

“Perhaps he was,” Damoc said tensely, “but we do not know if he is now in league with Adu’lin. Feather him.”

“No!” Leitos shouted.

Closer now, Adham’s voice pierced the morning quiet, but was still indistinct.

Head cocked, Sumahn’s eyes suddenly went round. “Ambush. He said ambush! ”

Damoc looked over his shoulder, doubt written over his features. “I did not hear that.”

“Then you are as deaf as you are stupid,” Sumahn snapped, nocking his own arrow and aiming it at the elder. “Tell your people to hold, or I’ll stick a feather in your throat.”

“Treacherous dog!” Damoc roared. Nola joined him, sword poised, green eyes afire. Belina shook her head and backed away. Those Yatoan bowmen closest by, abruptly turned their arrows on the four Brothers.

Where relative calm had held, now confusion reigned on the wall. Ulmek began shouting furiously, and Daris joined Sumahn in bending his bow. Leitos counted at least half a dozen arrowheads aimed directly at his chest. There was nowhere to go, no way to escape.

Belina moved between Leitos and her people. “Stop! To kill him, is to destroy hope for us!”

Spittle flying off his lips, Damoc raged, “I’ve heard enough about your accursed visions, girl. Stand aside.”

“I will not. If you kill him, then you might as well kill me, and all the rest of us.”

“Heed me, daughter, or by the gods of old I will-”

A hissing sound, followed by a seemingly insignificant thump, cut him off.

Leitos whirled to find a young, dark-haired woman with an arrow lodged in her throat topple off the wall. An instant later, a hail of shrieking arrows sliced through the Yatoan ranks.

“Archers in the watchtower,” Leitos warned, at the same time Ulmek shouted, “Take cover!”

Sumahn and Daris followed Ulmek in jumping down to a slate-roofed storage shed built against the inside of the wall, and then they bounded off that and rushed into the shadows of a nearby building.

Leitos did not hesitate. He caught Belina around the waist, and together they dropped to the shed, rolled off the roof, and crashed against hard-packed dirt. Leitos took the brunt of the impact, with Belina landing mostly on top of him.

He groaned as he got to his feet, ribs aching. Above them, as his people died in droves, Damoc cursed and flung himself off the wall. Other Yatoans followed, some missing the shed to sprawl on the ground. Too many to count, pincushioned with arrows, did not regain their feet.

Leitos pulled Belina toward Ulmek. Damoc yelled some command, but Leitos kept on until he reached the safety of the building and his Brothers. Only then did he let go of Belina.

Damoc ran toward them, eyes bright with fury. An arrow jutted from one shoulder, and another from the opposite thigh. He did not seem to feel his wounds, and rushed near with his sword raised. “Betrayers! You led us into this trap!”

With blurring speed, Ulmek spun and batted away Damoc’s blade, caught the man’s throat, and slammed him against the building. His free hand ripped out the shaft buried in the elder’s man’s shoulder, then jammed the barbed head half the width of a finger into the skin above his heart. “Your enemies wait in the city, not among us, and the only trap is the one you stepped into with all your proud bluster.”

Unsure which enemies to address, the remaining Yatoans split ranks, half focusing on their surroundings, the other half aiming at Ulmek’s back.

“Call off your warriors,” Ulmek advised, “or I will end you before you see the deaths of your people avenged.”

The veins in Damoc’s neck bulged, and he flung his head back and screamed. His grief washed over everyone who heard it, and Leitos shrank back, knowing too well such pain.

When that cry cut off, the elder’s agony fled him all at once, and he went limp. Had Ulmek not still held him, Damoc would have collapsed.

“Call them off,” Ulmek urged. “Set them to defend us, or we are all dead. Do you understand me?”

With a pained expression, Damoc looked from Ulmek to his few remaining clansmen, and finally to his daughters. “Belina?” he whispered. “Nola?”

“We are alive,” they said together.

“The time to grieve those you lost will come,” Ulmek said, “but that time is not now. You must command the living. Fight, Damoc, and bring judgment upon those who would end your clan.”

Damoc looked over the Brother’s shoulder to his clan. “Heed this man in all things.”

As Yatoan bows began to lower, Adham skidded to a halt at the edge of the building, eyes wild, face dripping sweat.

“We must flee,” he said. “Adu’lin has archers ringing us about. Sea-wolves and Mahk’lar advance, tightening the noose, with the aid of Alon’mahk’lar-two score, at the least. As well….” He trailed off, glancing between Ulmek and Leitos, Sumahn and Daris. In a grave voice he finished, “As well, your brothers march with the enemy. They are men no more, but demons sheathed in the flesh of the men they once were.”

Leitos and the others stared in open shock at Adham’s revelation.

“What can he hope to gain by that course?” Ulmek seethed.

Damoc’s eyes lit up, as if discovering the answer to a puzzling riddle. “ That is why Adu’lin so eagerly came to your rescue! He knows that Mahk’lar cannot possess us, and so serve no purpose in defending Armala against our attacks. The Kelrens are a threat, but no more than any man. As well, Alon’mahk’lar can be killed.”