Ru Emerson - Keep on the Borderlands

Jerdren sighed heavily. “I know that, but if we don’t-”

“It’ll all get done, trust me. Meantime, there’s a couple menhere who can probably help you figure out where we are better than Eddis can. Remember what someone said a while ago about lizard men and boggy ground? We don’t want to stumble headlong into fens and monsters. And you don’t really want to fight lizard men again, do you?”

“I remember someone talking about lizard men, Brother, but Idon’t remember anything about bogs.”

“Maybe that was something I heard back in the Keep, then,”Blorys broke in. “I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter. Not finding lizardmen is important to me. You and I are the only ones here who’ve fought thembefore. We were part of a full company, with experienced officers, and it was still a nasty battle! That’s not why we’re out here, anyway. We’re supposedto find bandits, and deal with them. Remember?”

Silence. Eddis sipped her tea, eyes closed, aware of M’Baddahat her elbow. She wondered briefly if Blorys meant her to overhear their conversation, then decided it wasn’t worth worrying about.

M’Whan’s warning shout brought her to her feet, the emptybowl sliding from her lap, her empty cup going the other way.

“Yrik!” he bellowed in his own tongue.

The Keep man’s voice topped the outland youth’s. “Orcs,coming right at us. Between us and the camp. Twenty or more!”

“Up the tree! Do it now, man!” M’Whan yelled at him. “Father!They’re coming at you from north and south!”

Eddis dove for her bow, slipped the string in place, and grabbed the three arrows she’d left next to her blanket the night before.

“Got it!” Jerdren shouted. “All right, people! Half of usover here, and Eddis, you take the north! Three lines deep, just like we practiced!”

“Got it!” she yelled back and grabbed two of the spearmen asshe strode around the fire. Thank the gods they had practiced this maneuver, she thought as she knelt and dropped the sword belt between her knees, so she could fit an arrow to the string. Archers in front, spearmen behind, sword at the rear. It was all they had time for as several massive, ill-clad creatures burst into the clearing. Some carried short stabbing swords and round shields, one a mace, and two of them heavy clubs. She heard Jerdren yelling a challenge as her first arrow soared across open ground to bounce harmlessly off a hardened leather jerkin. You didn’t factor for the wind, she told herself andsighted down her second arrow. At her right, M’Baddah was steadily firingarrows, and to her left, Willow had already brought down two of the monsters.

“Aim for the eyes and the throat!” the elf shouted.

Eddis shot again, aiming just at the massive chin of the nearest orc. The wind sent it a little offside and down, but she’d correctedproperly this time. With a howl of agony, the brute went down, nothing of her arrow visible in its throat but the fletching. With her third arrow gone-itwounded the orc who was trying to avoid tripping over his dying companion-shelet one of the spearmen draw her back through their line and caught her breath. Keep men jabbed at the oncoming brutes, and two of the men fell.

Remember what you learned the one time you fought orcs, Eddis told herself grimly.

The man right in front of her brought down his enemy with a mighty thrust to the eye and lost his grip on the weapon. Eddis eased aside for him to retreat from the next orc that was charging straight at them, club swinging.

“Break-now!” she shouted. The same cry echoed from behind herhalf a breath later-so Jerdren was still on his feet and fighting. Orcs chargedinto them, but the humans and elf were no longer a compact fighting group, splitting off by ones and twos. Eddis leaped aside as one orc stumbled over the stones edging the fire pit and fell. One of the Keep men caught up the brute’sclub and with a wild yell, brought it down on the back of its head. The orc shuddered, then lay still, its hair and jerkin smoldering.

“Look out, Blor!” Jerdren yelled.

M’Baddah pulled Eddis aside as another orc charged across theopen at a dead run, a mace clutched in its hand. The outlander spun away from an overhand blow at the last moment. Eddis pivoted the other direction, letting the orc’s charge send it hurtling past her. Her sword sliced through the air anddown, biting deep into the backs of its unarmored knees, severing tendons. The brute shrieked and collapsed on its back, one arm and the mace under it. Eddis reversed her grip quickly and brought the sword down two-handed, burying the blade in its throat, leaping back as blood pulsed high. It slowed almost at once.

Across the fire pit, Jerdren was fighting back one monster with slashing two-handed swings of a club. Blor was still on his feet, but she couldn’t make out anything else. A wordless shout of warning from M’Baddahbrought her back around as he brought his curved sword down in a hard, overhand arc across the nape of a fallen orc. Two of the creatures still stood, but neither was moving well, and both were bleeding copiously. Two others came from the trees, but they weren’t running. Getting wary, she thought. They should.There were six of the brutes down and dead that she could see, and one of her people in trouble, so far as she could tell.

One of the two newcomers went after M’Baddah, who had fallenback with two of the spearmen. The other orc brought up its short sword and charged her.

She stood her ground until the last possible moment-nearlytoo late. Its shield clipped her left shoulder hard, and her arm went numb. She pivoted, but already off balance, she went to one knee, lashing out with the sword as the monster passed her. More by luck than intent, the blade slammed into its ankle just above a huge, filthy foot and rebounded, nearly flying out of her hand. Bellowing in rage and pain, the orc came about, sword slashing wildly as it tried to hit her. Eddis fought her way back to her feet and backed out of reach as the orc tried to come after her. The wounded leg wouldn’tsupport it, and it went down but fought its way back up again. Eddis glanced over her shoulder to make certain she wasn’t heading into the arms of anotherorc, then backed up, yelling as she went.

“Someone with a spear-finish him!”

“Arrow!” one of the Keep men shouted back, and she dropped toone knee, flinching as a bowstring twanged from somewhere close behind her. The arrow, unfortunately, merely creased the orc’s skull, but a half-breath later,one of M’Baddah’s deadly steel sh’kuris sang across the clearing and burieditself in the orc’s throat. The creature sagged, wavered, and finally fell over.

“Eddis!” Jerdren’s bellow cut through the howls of furious orwounded orcs. “They’re running!”

“Got it!” she shouted back. Apparently the orcs had hadenough. Those who could still move were beginning to back away, leaving their wounded. When they reached the woods, they simply turned and fled. She turned to see two others running from Jerdren and Blorys. The only orcs over there were four wounded and three more dead.

She kept her sword at the ready and moved around the north perimeter of the camp as M’Baddah called out, “We’re clear here, my son!”

“Coming!” M’Whan shouted back. He sounded short of breath,and looked it when he and the Keep man came into camp a moment later. “They’regone, father, across the road and still running. But one of them thought he’dclimb into the tree with us, just now.”

“What were you doing in a tree?” Jerdren wanted to know.

The youth shrugged.

“We hadn’t much choice. One minute we two were alone outthere, getting wood, and the next they were between us and camp. We got up high enough that the branches wouldn’t have held their weight.”