John Betancourt: The Dawn of Amber

They rounded the corner and came into sight. The moon lay to their backs, but I could see the riders’ glowing red eyes and the fiery red breaths of their black steeds. They pounded toward us, swords raised, and let loose wild, gibbering war-cries.

We must get our backs to a wall!” Dworkin cried, “Don’t let them surround us or we won’t last long!”

“Come—over here!” I sprinted to the house opposite Helda’s, a two-story stone building whose owners, like most of the townsfolk, had fled the coming war weeks ago. With the windows shuttered and the doors nailed shut, we couldn’t get inside even if we wanted to. Nor could the hell-creatures circle around behind us by going through the back of the house. It was a good place to make our stand.

I tensed, raising my sword, as the riders slowed. How had a band of hell-creatures gotten so far behind our lines? As soon as I returned to camp, I intended to find out, even if it meant stringing up every sentry by his thumbs for sleeping on duty.

Then, remembering Dworkin’s carriage and the passenger I’d glimpsed, I glanced up the street. His strange little vehicle had not moved, though its glow had, if anything, increased.

“What about your passenger?” I asked in a low voice. “Won’t the hell-creatures attack her, too?”

“No. They won’t bother with anything or anyone else until we’re dead. And if it comes to that… well, Freda can take care of herself. She will be gone before they get the door open.”

Freda. The name meant nothing to me.

I turned my attention back to the coming fight. “Use two blades if you have them,” I said, “and watch their horses. They’ll spit fire in your eyes and blind you if you let them get close.”

A year of battling hell-creatures made you wary or dead. I’d lost too many good men to their tricks.

Dworkin drew his own sword plus a long knife, and I pulled a smaller knife from my belt. Then the riders were upon us in a thunder of hooves on cobblestones, still screaming their savage war cries.

With the house to our backs, they ringed us in, but only a few could get at us at any one time. I found myself facing a tall rider on a true devil of a horse. As the rider’s flexible sword whipped through the air, trying to catch me with the razored barbs on its end, his mount also lunged, snorting sparks and snapping pointed teeth.

I parried, parried, and parried again, waiting for an opening. It was a weird dance by the light of the burning house across from us and the eerily glowing carriage at the end of the street. On the battlefield, I had seen men beheaded while trying to avoid the horse, or killed by the horse while parrying the swordsman’s blows. Fighting with two blades was the best defense for a man on foot. You could keep the horse at bay with the knife while concentrating on the rider.

My hell-creature opponent was a more than able swordsman. He used his height advantage to the full, raining down savage blow after blow, trying to wear me out or beat me down. Such an attack would have worked on a lesser man, but I set my feet and stood my ground. I had little choice—with a house to my back, I could not retreat.

The next few minutes became a blur as I parried, riposted, and parried again. Beside me I heard Dworkin grunt once or twice, and then a horse screamed and fell. In that moment’s distraction my blade slipped beneath my opponent’s guard and pierced his chest.

With a low gurgle, the hell-creature slumped in the saddle. I ripped my blade free. His horse screamed in anger and reared back, kicking with its front hooves.

I ducked to the side, gave it a good prick with the tip of my blade, and watched as it wheeled and raced back the way they had come. Probably returning him to their camp, I thought. Another hell-creature galloped forward to take his place, red eyes glaring.

His horse didn’t wait, but spat a jet of fire at me the second it grew near. I leaned back and batted my knife at its snarling face. Its teeth had been filed to points—a truly hideous creature.

Screaming a warbling war-cry, the rider rained down smashing blows and an intricate slashing attack that only served to strengthen my will. You will not pass. That had become King Elnar’s rallying cry, and I made it mine now, too.

Giving a roar of my own, I seized the initiative and attacked. He matched me ringing blow for blow. Then, with a quick feint and a nimble thrust, I pierced his right hand with my blade. His sword went flying. As he yanked on his horse’s reins with his other hand and tried to wheel away, I closed and struck three quick, sharp blows to the side of his helm.

That tumbled him from his saddle, and his ankle caught in the stirrups. I gave his mount a slap on the rump with the flat of my blade.

“Go!” I screamed at it, waving my sword. “Run!”

Giving an unholy wail, the horse fled. It dragged the hell-creature down the streets, his helm and armor banging and rattling on the cobbles.

I chuckled to myself. If he lived, he certainly wouldn’t be fighting for a long, long time.

I enjoyed a second’s break as the remaining hell-creatures jockeyed for position to get at me. When I glanced over at Dworkin, I saw with some surprise that he had already dispatched no fewer than six of his opponents. He fought two now, his sword and knife a darting blur as he darted between their horses to parry and stab. I had never seen such speed or swordsmanship before, and it made my own more-than-able defense seem clumsy and amateurish.

No sense letting the break go to waste, I thought. Bending, I pulled a small knife from my boot sheath and flipped it underhand. The tip nicked one of Dworkin’s opponents on the chin, just below the helm. I don’t think it did more than scratch him, but that was the distraction Dworkin needed to run him through. Then, whirling and with a magnificent double-feint, Dworkin beheaded the other. The body slowly toppled from the saddle, and then both of the horses raced off.

A horn sounded from the end of the street, and distant voices began crying an alarm. The town watch must have finally noticed something amiss, I realized with a snort of amusement. Hundred-foot-tall sheets of green flame and roving bands of hell-creatures with fire-breathing horses battling in the streets hadn’t escaped them. Undoubtedly they would show up just in time to claim credit for saving us.

As if realizing they hadn’t much time left, the hell-creatures pressed their attack. Dworkin killed another, and I killed two more in quick succession. Six remained. They fell back for a second, steadying their horses and preparing to rush us all at once. This would be the decisive moment in the fight, I realized. Strong as I was, my muscles had begun to tire, and these last six hell-creatures and their mounts were still fresh for battle.

I drifted closer to Dworkin, keeping my sword up.

“Help will be here soon,” I said. Not that he needed it. He wasn’t even panting. “We just have to hold them off for a few more minutes.”

“Wait. I have something here…”

He tucked his long knife under one arm and rummaged around in a pouch with his free hand, muttering softly to himself. Then, just as the six hell-creatures spurred their mounts toward us for their final attack, he pulled out a small crystal that glinted with an inner fire.

“Aha!” he said.

He raised the crystal to eye level, and a beam of dazzling white light shot from the tip, brighter than the sun, brighter than anything I had ever seen before. It sliced through the four closest riders and their mounts like a scythe through wheat. Horses and hell-creatures alike fell, screaming in pain, blood spraying, their various parts flopping on the cobbles like fish out of water. They had been sliced in half, I realized, numbly taking in the horrible scene. Then they lay still, dark blood pooling rapidly.