James Barclay - Beyond the Mists of Katura

The Wesmen became aware of them slowly, the first who saw them nudging the warrior next to him. A third was sitting with his back to them, close enough to touch. He stopped tearing at the animal bone in his hands and looked round, took in Grafyrre’s camouflage, his weapons and his stance and made a grab for a weapon.

Grafyrre stamped on his wrist and chopped a blade through his shoulder. The Wesman howled and fell forward. Jaqruis sighed across the fire, striking targets in the face and throat. Ferinn and Lynees chased through after them. Ferinn lashed a kick into a Wesman nose. Lynees chopped her blade into the side of another scrambling to his feet.

Grafyrre headed right. Three shamen stared at him, their palms held up in front of their chests, mouths moving in quiet chant. Grafyrre whipped a blade across the neck of one, hacked his other into the arms of the second and landed a butt square on the bridge of the third’s nose.

Ahead of him, a warrior had stood and grabbed a dagger from his belt. Grafyrre moved in, blocked a straight thrust aside and thumped a kick into the Wesman’s stomach. He staggered back, winded. Grafyrre moved up a pace and thrust a blade through his heart.

Grafyrre could feel the camp coming alive around him. Shouts were going up, voices raised in alarm, and a horn sounded, urgent and anxious and cut off abruptly. He nodded.

‘Good, good.’

Lynees leaped high, kicking out to either side, her feet connecting with shamen heads. She landed, her blade blurring in the firelight. Blood blew across the smoke and hissed on the fire. Grafyrre moved to join her. The Wesmen were beginning to organise themselves. A knot of eight or so was gathered under a standard, weapons bristling as they tried to cover every angle.

Shamen were running for the dubious security of their warriors. Grafyrre led the charge at the knot by the standard. He hurled a jaqrui in first, seeing it deflect off an axe blade and spin away, its target never seeing it and alive only by good fortune.

Lynees and Ferinn were at his shoulders.

‘Over the blades,’ he said.

The three TaiGethen tore in, jumping high two paces from the Wesman blades. Grafyrre’s front foot caught a warrior on the forehead, snapping his head back and putting him down. Grafyrre landed astride him, pierced his chest with a blade and spun to his left, fielding a fast strike on his sword. The Wesman drew back to strike again but failed to see Ferinn coming from his right. Her kick caught him in the side of the head, knocking him senseless.

Grafyrre dropped to his haunches to avoid a swipe. He bounced back up, kicked out into his target’s knee and followed up with blows from both blades, seeing one blocked and the other bite deep into the Wesman’s side. Lynees swept the legs from another Wesman and jabbed a blade hard into his gut. She turned a forward roll across his body, rose in the same movement and jammed her sword into the groin of another.

Horns were blaring across the Wesman camp now. Grafyrre turned to face the last of the knot of Wesmen. Behind him the standard exploded under the force of black fire.

‘Get to shadow!’ he called.

He rushed the Wesman, swaying outside a thrust to his midriff and hacking into the small of the tribesman’s back. He grabbed the injured man around the throat and turned him into the path of two shamen. Black fire ripped into his body, seeking the elf who held him.

The Wesman screamed. Grafyrre held him upright and pushed him into the shamen, his body colliding with them on its way to the ground. Grafyrre dropped his blades, pulled a jaqrui from his belt pouch and threw. The blade mourned across the short space and thudded into a shaman’s temple, knocking him down. Grafyrre ran hard at the other one, seeing him stretch out his arms to cast. He leaped above the black fire that raged from the shaman’s fingertips and landed with his legs around the man’s shoulders.

Grafyrre grasped his head in both hands and twisted hard. The shaman grunted and fell. Grafyrre went with the fall, rolling away, coming to his feet and tearing back in to smash a foot into the enemy’s windpipe. He ran to pick up his swords and headed for the shadows beyond the ring of campfires.

Ferinn and Lynees joined him to look at their work. The camp was in uproar. TaiGethen were still among them, doing awful damage. Wesmen tried to organise themselves but had no idea where their enemy was coming from in the confusing firelight and the puddles of dark night.

To the left and the right Grafyrre could see others hurrying to join the defence. If the elves escaped unscathed it would have been the perfect attack. But now it was time to break. He had to trust that each cell leader would see the signs. Some were already moving back into the night. Howls of pain told of others still deep in the skirmish.

Grafyrre heard the crackle of black fire and saw fingers of it pick at the ground where elven feet had run. He tracked back to the source and saw a defended group of shamen looking for targets.

‘Let’s get them and get out,’ he said. ‘Tai, with me.’

Auum watched the concerted movement away from the main gates and nodded his approval. Stein had long since flown into the college to seek assistance and Auum hoped he could muster some cover at the city walls by the rear gates.

‘Time to go,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep the pace high. TaiGethen to the flanks. Drech, stay near Takaar and the Senserii. Il-Aryn, don’t cast unless you must; you’ll only attract attention. Take Drech’s lead. Let’s go.’

The run was about half a mile. Though a good number of Wesmen had answered the horn calls, hundreds had stayed put, warriors and shamen both. Auum moved off, Ulysan and Duele with him, spread to cover the front. The Senserii with Takaar and Drech among them ran immediately behind, and the rest of the Il-Aryn came in their wake, TaiGethen running a defence around them.

At the outer pickets the TaiGethen moved to take out the guards, leaving Auum clear space in which to run. They gathered momentum. Two cells ran wide either side of Auum as they approached the first fires.

‘Keep it up, don’t get stalled.’ Auum drew a jaqrui and cocked it ready. ‘Tai, break on my word.’

Auum watched Wesmen rushing in ahead of them. Horns sounded close and more were readying themselves on both flanks. Auum glanced behind him. Gilderon watched everything and missed nothing. There was no one Auum trusted more to make the right decision every time in a fight.

Auum threw his jaqrui. The crescent blade keened across the thirty-yard space and lodged in a Wesman chest. The warrior coughed blood and pitched forward. Others roared and charged.

‘Break!’ ordered Auum.

With his Tai on his flanks, Auum cruised to a sprint, drawing both blades from their back scabbards and cycling them in his hands. The line of Wesmen ahead was two deep and seven wide. Behind them and off to both sides, shamen were readying. He trusted Drech to sense them as he said he could.

Auum charged directly at the centre of the defence, where axe-wielding warriors blocked his path. He ran hard, dropped to his knees and slid across damp grass, his blades held out to either side. He felt them bite into legs even as the axes swung over his head. Auum relaxed his arms, sliding past his targets before coming to his feet. He didn’t pause, running on at the back line, hearing Ulysan and Duele finishing what he’d started.

The TaiGethen were among the Wesmen, who did not know which way to strike. Auum faced three, two with long swords and one with an axe. Blood dripped from his blades where he held them, one high across his face and one low across his legs. He waited for a heartbeat, hearing the fight going on around him.

The three rushed him and Auum watched them come. The axe came overhead and he stepped aside, hacking his left blade in at waist height. From the right a long sword was thrust at his heart, and he battered the blow aside, opening up his body and bringing his left blade across and into the exposed flank of his enemy.