Nancy Berberick - Stormblade

Stanach’s sword high, his guard clear, the draconian’s companion lunged from the left and would have neatly skewered the dwarf had a fist-sized stone not caught him hard at the unprotected base of his neck and dropped him like a felled ox.

“Stanach! Don’t let your sword get caught in ’em! The body will hold the blade till they turn to—behind you! Duck!”

Stanach did, and a blade whistled in the air an inch above his head. Another rock flew and missed. Stanach scrambled to his feet and turned only barely in time to deflect and arrest the downward thrust of a draconian’s sword with his own. The draconian hissed. Teeth bared and dripping in long jaws, thin red tongue flicking, he threw all of his weight against Stanach’s defense.

Stanach’s blade moved back. Its razored edge was only a finger’s width from the dwarf’s neck. His hand, wet with cold sweat, slipped on the sword’s grip. His attacker had the advantage of size and bore down on Stanach’s blade with his own, all his weight behind. A bleak understanding shivered through the dwarf: he would not go down until he’d torn his muscles from his bones. Grimly, Stanach put his back into a last push.

A wild cackling sounded from above, Lavim’s laughter. Another of his deadly missiles flew true and hit Stanach’s opponent in the eye.

The next flew foul. A sharp edged stone caught Stanach on the right elbow, numbing his arm to the wrist. His sword flew from his useless hand.

His heart thundering painfully against the cage of his ribs, Stanach spun and dropped to his knees on the cobbles, groping for his weapon, sure that he would feel the fatal plunge of steel between his shoulders before he reached it. He cursed the kender’s aim and gasped a prayer to Reorx all in one breath. At the same instant Lavim, shouted a hasty apology and fired another rock from above.

The draconian roared, staggering now under a rain of stones and cobbles. Lavim whooped. “Get ’im, Stanach! No! Don’t! There’s more of ’em coming! Run, Stanach! Run!”

Steel-soled boots rang against the cobbles like thunder roaring. Four more draconians rounded the corner at the top of the street. Stanach snatched up his sword in his left hand, scrambled to his feet, and waved up to Lavim.

“Get down here, kender!”

Lavim would have liked to, but he didn’t see how that was possible. Wings, he thought, kender really do need wings! He crawled out onto the hauling strut and clutched at the beam with both hands. He dropped to his full length, peered down at Stanach below and yelled, “Catch!”

The best Stanach could do was break the kender’s fall.

They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, cobbles biting into backs and knees. Stanach hauled Lavim to his feet, hoping that most of the kender’s bones were still intact. Hanging onto Lavim’s arm, Stanach ran faster than he’d ever run before.

Tyorl stepped in front of Kelida.

The soldier’s eyes narrowed. He closed his fingers around the hilt of his sword.

“Aye,” the soldier said, his fingers tapping a restless pattern against the hilt. “A sweet good-bye. You weren’t leaving, were you, elf?”

The draconian laughed, a short, hard bark. “I think he was, Harig. What you saw must have been the wench’s farewell kiss.”

Tyorl’s hand itched for a sword. Kelida looked up, her eyes wide. Her breathing harsh with fear. The pulse in her neck leaped.

“I’d wager she’d forget the elf fast enough after he’s dead, Harig. Think you could take him?”

“The elf?” Harig snorted. “My blade’s tasted elf blood before. Thin and old, but it will do.”

Tyorl grabbed Kelida’s shoulder and spun her aside, snatching Hauk’s sword. As he did, Harig drew his sword, too. The draconian and the other human stood away. Neither made a move to intervene, but their eyes were red and hungry.

Harig bared broken, yellowed teeth in a grin. “What say you, elf? Is she worth a little blood?’

The breeze strengthened and moaned around the top of the ridge. The stench of burning and death gusted up from the valley. Along the hilt of Hauk’s sword, sapphires winked and danced in jeweled pattern to a silent song of light.

Tyorl took an easy, loose stand and leveled his sword as though he were not the defender but the challenger. “All your blood,” he said, his voice low and cold as only an elf’s can be, “would not begin to measure the worth.”

Tyorl saw Harig’s intent to strike in his muddy brown eyes. Hauk’s blade rose high and fell hard. The two soldiers howled and Kelida screamed. Harig was dead before he ever moved.

Tyorl moved fast. He grabbed Kelida’s wrist and pulled her close. Again he leveled his blade in challenge, this time at the two remaining guards. “I can deal the same death to you if you want it.”

The soldiers, swords drawn, flanked him. The draconians hissed, a sound that reminded Tyorl of snakes rising to strike. As they closed in, he prayed to gods too long neglected that his boast was true.

The cobbled streets of Long Ridge left behind, Stanach and Lavim made good speed. So did the pursuing draconians. The kender’s head was down, his small legs pumping. Three belt pouches made of leather, two of cloth, bounced and swung wildly as he ran. Lavim wheezed now like an old bellows and wasted no breath in laughing aloud, though Stanach could still see the laughter in his shining green eyes. Lavim ran for the sheer pleasure of hearing the draconians’ furious cursing.

When one of their pursuers lost his footing in a mud puddle, tangling two others and sending searing curses through the street, Lavim slowed to watch them thrashing and trying to sort themselves out. Stanach grabbed the kender’s arm and, ducking down an alley, dragged Lavim after him. Lavim sprang over cracked barrels stinking of sour wine. Stanach didn’t and only scrambled up out of the mud as the draconians entered the alley roaring. Stanach ran.

Stanach’s heart crashed against his ribs. His legs began to weigh as heavily as lead and the stitch in his side threatened to drop him with every step.

As they approached the last bend before the road wound out of the town to begin its steep descent into the valley, a woman screamed, high and terrified. Neither the dwarf nor the kender could have slowed if he’d wanted to. They were at the bend in the road before the echoes of the woman’s scream had finished rolling down into the valley. Lavim snatched Stanach’s arm, dragged him to a halt, and pointed. Stanach cursed. The elf he’d been searching for all morning was battling for his life against two dragonarmy soldiers. Blood streamed from his right shoulder and his face.

In the road, the serving girl from the tavern scrambled for rocks. She threw what she found at the draconians. Though her aim was good, her missiles gave the elf no help at all, but rebounded harmlessly from the mail of his opponents. What was she doing in the company of the elf, anyway?

Backed to the rocky edge of the ridge, the elf wielded his sword double-handed and with considerable skill. But Stanach knew that skill was not going to win out over numbers and a cliff’s edge. The elf could not possibly hold his ground against the two draconians. If he didn’t miss a step and plunge to his death over the ridge, he’d die on a draconian’s blade.

Lavim, on the theory that anyone fighting a draconian could be none but a friend, bellowed an enthusiastic battle cry and threw himself headfirst at one of the embattled elf’s attackers. The soldier and kender went down in the road.

Stanach moved more cautiously and with considered intent. He had not, as Lavim had, forgotten their pursuit. At any moment, four more draconians were going to round the bend. A kender, a girl, a bleeding elf, and a winded dwarf were not going to be proof against six of Carvath’s creatures. Two dead draconians turning to dust in the road, however, might stop the other four long enough to make escape a slim possibility. There was nothing Stanach wanted more at this moment than to be away from Long Ridge. He ducked in under the draconian’s guard and thrust hard and up, killing the creature and dragging his sword free just as the elf fell to his knees, his blade rattling to the ground. Stanach reached to return the sword. He found the elf’s hand on the grip before his own. He looked down then and, for a long moment, he stopped breathing.