R. Salvatore - The Ancient

A right cross staggered the powrie even more, and gave Cormack the opportunity to square up against the dwarf.

“Yach, but I’m to scrape the skin from yer pretty face!” the stubborn powrie promised, and came on.

A trio of stinging left jabs put the dwarf back on his heels.

Cormack retreated a bit more; his reach was his advantage, he knew, and when he looked at his opponent, who seemed like a walking block of rock, he figured it might be his only advantage.

Giavno swung hard with his makeshift wooden mace. He scored a solid hit, but the powrie pressed him relentlessly. How the monk wished that he still had the mace he had carried when he had left Chapel Pellinor, a spiked weapon of wonderful balance and weight. But alas, that mace and all of their other metallic items were lost to them, corroded by the constant steam that floated about the islands of this hot lake.

Giavno hit the powrie again, cracking the block head of the weapon against the back of the turning dwarf’s shoulder. The monk rolled his shoulders, thrusting forth his free hand in time to deflect the dwarf’s smashing response. And as that powrie staff slipped by, the monk wrapped his arm over the dwarf’s hands and bore in hard against his enemy.

Big mistake, Giavno realized as soon as he slammed against the dwarf, who didn’t budge an inch. For now his advantage, the length of his arms, was lost, and the powrie fast squirmed and twisted free its hands, clamping them about Giavno’s waist and tugging him along as it fell into a roll.

Another powrie closed on the wrestling pair, whacking away at Giavno with a weighted stick, raising welts under the monk’s heavy brown robes.

Giavno grimaced through the pain and managed to turn about to see the two companions nearest him, both fighting valiantly and fiercely against a trio of dwarves, trading punch for swat. At one point in the roll, the dwarf loosened its grip, and Giavno quickly set his feet and thrust forward, scrambling toward his friends. As he had hoped, one of the powries broke away to intercept, launching a flying tackle at the monk and bearing him back to the two pursuing dwarves.

Still clutching his graphite stone, Giavno fell into its depths. He got smacked with a staff and punched on the side of his head. The dwarf who had tackled him twisted him about as if to break him apart. But Giavno held his concentration and sent his energy into the stone and through the stone, and jolting sparks of electricity fired out in all directions around him.

The powries fell back, were thrown back, and Giavno sprinted for his companions. He glanced over at Cormack with sincere, almost fatherly, concern, but reminded himself that Cormack had secured his position on this mission to Alpinador precisely because he had shown himself to be the finest young fighter at Chapel Pellinor.

Cormack would get back to the three brothers, Giavno told himself, and prayed.

Ah, ye’re that one,” the dwarf said, nodding and smiling, and spitting a line of blood at Cormack’s feet. “Yer blood’ll make me beret shine all the brighter, then.”

He howled and brought his staff up above his head, leaping forward.

But Cormack had anticipated the move and was moving as well, diving down to the side and lashing out with his top leg. He didn’t hit the dwarf, but slid the kicking foot past him, then bent his knee and brought the leg back in at the back of the dwarf’s knees. The powrie halted his swing and overbalanced backward for a second, as Cormack’s calf drove in hard against the back of his knees.

That was naught but a ruse, though, as the unfortunate dwarf soon learned. For Cormack rolled out farther to the side, then reversed his flow, throwing his hips over and locking his scissors’ grip on the dwarf. The powrie tried to fight the inevitable pull, but had no leverage against the prostrate and rolling man, and Cormack’s trailing leg drove the dwarf forward and to the ground. The staff went flying and the powrie hit hard, just getting his hand under him in time to stop his face from smashing against the stones.

Cormack continued the roll to his back, extracting his legs on the last turn. He arched, put his feet under him, and snapped his muscles, lifting him to a standing position over the prone dwarf. He moved fast into position, where he could stomp the powrie’s face into the stone, and even lifted his foot over the back of the still-stunned dwarf’s head.

He hesitated.

He heard the splashing and turned in time to see the charge of the first dwarf he had decked, out in the water. It came out with fury-no, not fury, Cormack realized, but with terror.

For behind it emerged another creature, its smooth, bluish, almost translucent skin gleaming in the dull and hazy light, its black eyes peering at its prey intently under a protruding brow. A glacial troll, Cormack realized at once, and so too had the powrie, judging from the look of terror on his face!

No taller than the dwarves and far lighter, the glacial trolls were nevertheless the bane of all the island societies. Their thin limbs were deceptively strong, and their teeth pointed like little knives. And where came one troll, inevitably, came many, and Cormack saw that clearly now, the long waggling ears of the ugly goblinoid creatures poking from the surf all about the rocky beach.

The dwarf at Cormack’s feet grabbed him by the ankle and tugged hard, and he didn’t resist, but let himself fall backward into a roll, one that took him right over and back to his feet.

“Trolls! Trolls!” he cried, and he started toward the beach, yelling at the dwarf, “Faster!”

The dwarf threw his head back as he broke free of the surf and seemed to come on more quickly. Momentarily, though, for when the powrie jerked again, Cormack saw the truth of it.

The dwarf staggered forward, slowing, then slumped down to his knees and gave a great exhale.

“Yach!” cried the powrie on the ground before Cormack, and that one leaped to his feet. “Bikelbrin, me friend!”

That call had all the powries pausing and turning, as the truth of their predicament fell fully on man and dwarf alike. Ten of them stood against more than a dozen of the trolls, who were armed with spears tipped with sharpened, barbed shells and not the relatively benign sticks that the island inhabitants generally used to batter each other about the skulls.

The trolls closed on the kneeling Bikelbrin but so did Cormack, leaping down across the stones in full charge. He heard Brother Giavno shout, “To the abbey!” and understood that his three brethren would take that route, but he could not ignore the wounded powrie.

The glacial trolls neared, reaching for their embedded spears. Cormack put on a burst of speed, closing ground, and leaped, turning himself sidelong in midair as he cleared the dwarf. He was over the spears before the trolls could fully retract them. One let go of the shaft and threw its hands up to block, while the other stubbornly, and with a sickening wet sound, drew free its spear. That one took the brunt of the flying body-block as Cormack bowled both of the trolls over.

He landed atop them hard, smacking his hand painfully against a stone, and his forehead painfully against the back of that hand. A wave of dizziness washed over him, but he knew better than to succumb to it in the midst of vicious trolls! He rolled sidelong, right off the two, who scrambled and bit at him, one catching a tooth on his bare forearm.

Cormack tugged that arm free immediately and managed to slam it down hard on the troll’s face for good measure as he regained his balance.

No faster than the other troll, however, which lowered its spear for Cormack’s belly and thrust it forward.

The trained monk dodged aside and slapped the spear out wider with the flat of his hand. He started for the opening to strike at the creature, but instinct stopped him and turned him about.