J King - Edge of Destiny

"I don't fear them," Rytlock replied thoughtfully, looking up the rock wall. "I know them."

A few more steps brought Korrak and a dozen other charr through the choke point. "You even think like a human."

There came a boom like a mallet blow, and the crackle of rocks.

The charr looked up.

Sound lagged sight: A huge rockslide was scouring the slope above. The tumbling chaos of boulders poured over the edge of the cliff before the roar of it reached their ears.

Rytlock, Korrak, and the command corps turned around, shouting to the warriors behind them in the choke point. Their warnings were drowned out.

The first boulder smashed down atop a charr axeman. Another slab hammered a whole warband. Then stones pounded down in such numbers that the soldiers were lost in a crimson cloud of dust.

Korrak, Rytlock, and the command corps fell back as rocks cascaded into the canyon. Stones spun in clouds of dust and hurled out shrapnel. They mounded in the gap-thirty feet and sixty feet and ninety feet high, filling the canyon. At last, the final stones slid over the cliff's edge and clattered to a stop on the huge pile.

It was more than a pile. It was a cairn. Warbands lay interred there.

"A trap!" Rytlock shouted.

"Shut up!" Korrak snarled.

"I told you it was a trap!"

"I said shut up!" Korrak swung the axe end of his weapon in a wide arc.

Rytlock rolled away and came up in a crouch. A fierce smile ripped across his face. He grasped the hilt of his sword and drew it slowly from its stone scabbard. A fiery blade emerged, forged of two sharpened strands of twisted metal. Its name was Sohothin. Long ago it had belonged to a human prince of Ascalon. Now it was Rytlock's.

"You would raise your blade against me?" Korrak Blacksnout growled. "I will put an end to-"

The centurion's threat was cut short along with his neck, severed and cauterized. The head toppled, and the body crouched and fell.

Soldier Rytlock Brimstone turned to the dozen Iron Legion warriors standing with him on the near side of the rockfall and said, "Guess you're going to need a new leader."

One by one, they dropped to their knees and nodded their loyalty.

"We acknowledge you as our centurion-for the moment," snarled Sever Sootclaw. "Shall we clear the passage?"

"Let the charr behind the rocks clear it. We'll hunt down the humans who did this!"

Sootclaw's brow rose. "Humans? Here?"

"Yes. Here." Rytlock glared toward the cliff top. "They're cannier than you realize, but they're also cowards. They'll be fleeing now. We must be faster." Rytlock unclasped his breastplate and let it clank to the ground. "Take no needless thing. We have a long climb and a longer run and a battle afterward."

One by one, the kneeling warriors stood, their breastplates falling to the ground around them. They had given up their defenses. Now, they would fight to the death.

Day was dying as Logan Thackeray and his scouts reached a high pass above the timberline. They were about to descend into a new valley, but Logan lingered on a rocky overhang and peered back the way they had come, watching for movement. So far, only the shadows had moved, lengthening as the sun quit the world. The route they had taken would discourage any but the angriest pursuers.

Of course, these foes were furious.

At first, there was nothing. The mountain was silent, the air still. But then he glimpsed it. Five miles back and half a mile downslope, the saplings shivered with their passage.

The charr were coming.

Logan scrambled back from the overhang and went to his scouts. "They're closing on us. They're only five miles back."

The scouts stared at him, their faces white. They were light scouts trained for merchant caravans-not even part of the Ebon Vanguard. None of them had faced a single charr, let alone a dozen.

"The mountain and the darkness are our allies," Logan said. "We'll set traps as we retreat."

"Where? To the west? Those are ogre lands!" objected Wescott.

"Maybe we'll get past the ogres and the charr won't," Logan said simply. "Let's go!" He led the others down into a new valley.

Beneath a staring moon, Legionnaire Rytlock Brimstone bounded along a trail, dragging the air into his lungs. "They're close now. Can't you smell them?"

In the blackness, Sever Sootclaw crashed his foot on a stone. "Draw your sword. We need light."

"And show them where we are?" snarled Rytlock.

"We can't see. We've lost two already to their traps. How many more?"

"It wasn't the darkness that killed them. It was their own stupidity, and the cleverness of these humans. Their leader knows this land. He knows how we fight."

Sootclaw's brow rumpled. "You sound as if you admire him."

"Yes, like the hound admires the fox," Rytlock said, his eyes flashing. "Fall in! After me! They went this way-south and west." He grinned in the darkness. "We'll catch them within the hour."

"This way!" Logan hissed in the darkness as he ran along the rocky bank of a mountain stream. It was the only sure path through the forest. On all sides, moonlight showed thickets of pine that they couldn't navigate. Behind them flashed glints of horn or fang or steel.

The charr were converging.

Logan and his scouts pelted along the stream, fighting to keep their footing on water-smoothed stones. They were bunched tight, prey running from predators.

The stream dropped away before him in a sudden waterfall.

"Hold up! Hold up!" warned Logan.

The other scouts halted behind him, stopping just on the brink.

"How far down?" asked Wescott.

Logan kicked a stone over the edge and counted to five before he heard it hit. "Too far."

"What now?"

Logan smiled grimly. "Now we wade the stream and find another way."

"They're closing," Everlee noted.

"Yes, they are," Logan replied. "We've killed two or three, but their leader is a wily one. We'll kill a few more before they corner us. Come on."

He stepped into the frigid stream. Water rose to his knees and hips before it grew shallower. Sodden and shivering, Logan and his team rushed up the far bank and away into the darkness.

But there was no stream to guide them now, and little moonlight. In minutes, they had blundered into a thicket. Swords came out to hack through. At last, they broke into a high glade and ran beneath the moon.

Behind them, charr blades battered through the thicket.

Logan and his team ran between two stands of pine and into a narrow valley striped with moon shadows. Blindly they rushed forward and into a steep stone wall.

"Find a way out!" growled Logan.

"There's no way out!" Wescott replied. "A box canyon."

"Try climbing! Find anything to grab hold of," commanded Logan.

The scouts fumbled in the darkness along the rock walls.

Then a light dawned-a fiery light. The scouts turned to see a flaming sword sliding from a stone scabbard. The light sketched out a lionish face, grinning with fangs and eyes that smiled red. The charr stalked forward, towering over the man, and thrust his flaming sword high.

Logan pulled his war hammer from his belt and stepped up. "Wedge formation behind me."

The scouts lifted their weapons and positioned themselves.

The charr with the burning sword spoke. "At last, the rats are cornered."

Logan flashed a cockeyed smile. "We took out a few of you."

"And now, we'll take out all of you," the charr growled. Around him, more charr warriors marched up, slinging their axe-rifles down and pointing them at the humans. Their leader shouted, "Fire!"

The rifles roared, hurling out a barrage of smoke and lead.

Hel-looo? Hel-loooo?"

The black dire wolf raised his head from the warm blanket and blinked at the workshop door-way.