Mel Odom - The Black Road

Four warriors took up longbows, stood behind swordsmen,and drew back shafts. They had two arrows away each, dropping the lezanti in their tracks, before the first wave of the creatures reached them. Then the swordsmen held them back with their shields, staggered by the lezantis' speed, strength, and weight. The clang of flesh meeting steel boomed in the clearing.

"Darrick," Taramis said, his hands still moving, "hold the door to the house. There are women and children inside. Hurry."

Darrick ran, trusting the line of warriors to protect his back as he made for the small house.

Taramis unleashed a wave of shimmering force that hit the center of the lezanti pack, scattering them and showering them with flame. Several of the smoldering bodies hung in the trees or landed with bone-breaking thumps against the ground. Only a few of them tried to get up. The archers calmly nocked more shafts and fired again, as cool as any crew Darrick had ever seen. The clothyard shafts drilled into the eyes and throats of their foes, putting them down. But the odds were not in the favor of the warriors. They numbered twenty-six men, including Darrick, and there had to be at least eighty of the lezantis.

We're going to die, Darrick thought, but he never once considered running. Hauklin's mystical sword felt calm and certain in his hand despite the unaccustomed length.

A scrabbling sound alerted Darrick. He swung around in time to see the lezanti on the roof of the house leap at him, its claws reaching for him.

Darrick ducked beneath the creature's attack, set himself as it thudded against the ground. Not dazed even for a moment, the lezanti came up snarling and snapping. The elongated snout shot at Darrick's head. He parried the head with the sword, then drove a boot into the lezanti's stomach, doubling it over.

Still moving, Darrick stepped to the side and brought the sword down in a hand-and-a-half grip that powered the blade into the creature's side. To his surprise, the sword sliced through the lezanti, dropping it to the ground inhalves. The body parts quivered and jerked, then lay still. Blue energy crackled along the sword's length, and the lezanti's blood dried and flaked away, leaving the steel clean of it again.

Men cursed and fought out in the clearing, striving to hold back the merciless horde of creatures. Two men were down, Darrick saw, and others were wounded. Taramis unleashed another bolt of mystical energy, and two of the lezantis were covered in ice, frozen in place, shattering beneath the blades of the warriors who took advantage of their weakness.

Racing into the house, Darrick surveyed the small room filled with carvings and a few books. Ellig Barrows's wife, as gray-haired and gaunt as the old man was, stood in the center of the room with her hands over her chest.

Darrick glanced around at the wide windows in the front wall of the room as well as one of the side walls. There was too much open space; he could never hope to guard the old man's family there.

The grandson tugged at a heavy rug that covered the floor. "Help me!" he cried. "There is a hiding place beneath."

Understanding, Darrick grabbed the rug in one hand and yanked, baring the trapdoor beneath the material. Many of the homes along the border where the barbarian tribes often crossed over and raided were constructed with security holes. Families could lock themselves beneath the houses and live for days on the food and water stored there.

The boy's clever fingers found the hidden latch, and the trapdoor popped up.

Darrick slid the sword under the trapdoor's edge and levered it up, revealing the ladder beneath.

The boy took a lantern from the floor and reached for the old woman. "Come on, Grandmother."

"Ellig," the old woman whispered.

"He would want you to be safe," Darrick told her. "Whatever may come of this."

Reluctantly, the old woman allowed her grandson to lead her into the hiding place.

Darrick waited until they were both inside, then closed the trapdoor and dragged the rug back over it. Glass shattered behind him. He rose with the sword in his hand as the lezanti howled in through the broken window and threw itself at him.

There was little room to work with inside the house. Darrick reversed the sword in his right hand, gripping it so that it ran down his arm to his elbow and beyond. He kept his left hand back but ready, allowing his body to follow the line of the sword.

The lezanti reached for him. Darrick swung the sword, not allowing it to drift out beyond his body, keeping it in nice and tight as he'd been trained by Maldrin, who had been one of the best Darrick had ever seen at dirty infighting.

Darrick slapped the lezanti's claws to one side with the blade, then whipped his body back the other way, reversing the sword still along his arm, and slashed the creature across the face. The lezanti stumbled back, one hand to its ruined eye and crying out in pain. Darrick stepped in, keeping the sword close, and slashed at the creature's face again. Before it could retreat, he cut the head from its shoulders.

Even as the decapitated head rolled across the hardwood floor, another lezanti crashed through the door, and a third came through the window overlooking the well and the barn.

Breath rasping in his throat but feeling calm and centered, Darrick parried the spear the first creature wielded with surprising skill, caught the spear haft under his left arm, and caught it in his left hand. Holding the spear-carrying lezanti back by holding on to the spear, Darrick wheeled, dropped his sword, turned his hand over, caught the weapon in a regular grip before it fell, and chopped an arm from the other lezanti.

The spear-carrying lezanti shoved forward, trying to drive Darrick backward over a cushioned bench. Darrick pushed the spear out so that the point dug into the wallbehind him and halted the lezanti. Releasing the spear, he stepped forward, knowing the one-armed lezanti was closing in on him from behind again. He sliced the lezanti in front of him, shearing its head and one shoulder away, amazed at the sharpness of the sword. With the sword still in motion, he reversed his grip and drove the blade through the chest of the lezanti behind him.

Energy crackled along the blade again. Before Darrick could kick the lezanti free of the sword, blue flames erupted from where the blade pierced the creature's chest and consumed it in a flash. Ash drifted to the ground before Darrick's stunned eyes.

Before he could recover, another lezanti hurled itself through the broken window on the barn's side. Darrick succeeded in escaping the fist full of claws the lezanti threw at him but caught the brunt of the creature's charge. He flew backward, stumbling back through the door, unable to get his balance, and landed on the porch. He flipped to his feet as the lezanti charged again. Ducking this time, Darrick slashed the blade across the creature's thighs, chopping both legs off. The lezanti's torso hurtled by overhead and landed in the dirt in front of the porch.

"They're after the sword, Darrick!" Taramis called. "Run!"

Even as he realized what the sage said was true, Darrick knew he couldn't run. After losing Mat at Tauruk's Port, and himself for most of the past year, he couldn't run anymore.

"No," Darrick said, rising to his feet. "No more running." He took a fresh grip on the sword, feeling renewed strength flow through him. For the moment, all uncertainty drained away from him.

Several of the lezanti tore past the sprawling bodies of the warriors who had fought them. Nearly half of Taramis's group lay on the ground. Most of them, Darrick felt certain, wouldn't rise again.

Darrick waited on the charging creatures, lifting the sword high in both hands. Seven of them came at him, gettingin one another's way. Energy flickered along the sword's blade. He slashed at his foes as they came into reach, cutting into them, then stepping through the gap that was filled with the swirling ash the mystical flames left behind. Three had died in that attack, but the other four came around again.