Chris Pierson - Dezra's Quest

All she could do was twist so the creature landed on her legs instead of something more vital. She hit the ground hard, and lay beneath its weight, too dazed to move.

Across the battleground, the air whistled as Thenidor and Trephas swept their weapons back and forth, each circling the other, seeking an opening. Finally, Trephas feinted left, then shifted the attack quickly to his right. Thenidor wasn't fooled; he brought his weapon across to block. Soulsplitter struck the halberd's haft, cleaving it in half.

Snarling, Thenidor flung the pieces of his ruined weapon at Trephas and danced back, reaching for his sword. The blade rang free of its scabbard, and he lunged back into the fray. Trephas backed away, parrying-and tripped over the corpse he'd decapitated. He dropped to his knees.

Laughing, Thenidor lunged in. With an expert twist of his sword, he wrested Soulsplitter from Trephas's hand, sending it flying through the air to splatter in the mud, nearly twenty feet away. He swung the sword again, and Trephas leaned back, narrowly escaping a blow that would have disemboweled him, then fell, landing on his side.

"No!" Dezra shouted. Furiously, she twisted and squirmed, trying to get out from beneath the dead Skorenos.

For a third time, Fanuin and Ellianthe's bowstrings pinged. Thenidor twitched, groping at his rump. His eyelids drooped, but he shook his head, throwing off the effects of the sprites' poison. As Dezra dragged herself free of the fallen Skorenos, Thenidor loomed above Trephas, sword raised. He reached down, grabbing the centaur's mane, and jerked his head back.

"Now it ends, son of Nemeredes," he declared.

Dezra saw her dagger, stuck point-down in the mud. She grabbed it, felt its weight in her hand, and flung it desperately. It hissed through the air. A look of disbelief appeared on Thenidor's face, then froze there as the blade pierced his throat.

The sword fell from Thenidor's hand into the mud. A loud crack rang out, and Dezra's dagger blossomed in a cloud of steel dust. The explosion threw Thenidor backward, to lie motionless on the ground.

Silence settled over the battlefield. Trephas struggled back to his feet. He stared at Thenidor's body, then turned to gaze in amazement at Dezra.

"Thank you," he said. Not thee -you.

Dezra smiled. "Don't mention it."

Hurach watched from the shadows as Trephas retrieved the axe. He cursed his luck. If Soulsplitter had flown the other way when Thenidor disarmed the centaur. He could have grabbed it and escaped before anyone noticed. Instead, the weapon had landed on the far side of the fight, and the satyr had forced himself to watch the last of the battle unfold.

He'd felt no regret when Thenidor fell. In fact, he was somewhat relieved. He'd listened with great interest as Trephas and the humans discussed where to go next, and had overheard their talk of finding the centaurs' secret stronghold in the mountains. He thought, grinning, of how Chrethon would favor him if he returned not just with Soulsplitter, but also with the location of the horsefolk's sanctuary. Thenidor had almost ruined that with his clumsy attack; now that he was dead, Hurach was free to carry out his plans.

He shook his shaggy head. Now wasn't the time to dream of glory. He edged forward, his cloven hooves squelching in the mud, staying in the shadows to make sure his quarry didn't see him. They were gathering themselves now, tending their wounds. The bard was on his feet, swaying unsteadily and rubbing the fresh bruise on his temple. The old innkeeper had finally stopped grasping his shoulder, and color was returning to his ashen face.

They lingered a while longer, speaking in hushed voices, then they turned to walk west. Hurach's black eyes narrowed to slits as he watched them go, then he stole after them, through the shadows.

Arhedion's hand strayed over his shoulder, toward his quiver. He started as his fingers touched fletching, then cursed softly and lowered his hand back to his side. Chewing on a wild parsnip, he stared down into the rocky defile where his patrol stood guard.

In the month since Ithax fell, the tenor of the war had changed. When Leodippos pursued the centaurs into the highlands, Gyrtomon-who'd taken Rhedogar's place as war leader-had taken the fight to him. Again and again they'd struck, using the craggy terrain to scatter the foe. They'd inflicted heavy losses each time, fleeing into the hills before the Skorenoi could counter. Arhedion had been among the best at this, knowing how to find the best spots for an ambush. He and his twenty scouts had slain more than a hundred Skorenoi, losing only two of their number in return.

Two days ago, though, their duties had changed. Over Arhedion's protests, Gyrtomon had ordered them back and put them on guard duty. Since then, they'd stood at the mouth of this ravine, which was the only path to the horse-folk's stronghold. It was a prestigious duty, but Arhedion chafed at it nonetheless. He longed to be back in the hills, stalking the enemy.

He'd said as much to Gyrtomon, when the war chief and his own fighters passed by on their way to harry the foe. Gyrtomon had laughed. "Maybe it is dull," he'd admitted, "but this kind of fighting can't last. There'll be a direct attack, once they discover where we are. When that happens, I'll need my best warriors guarding this pass."

Arhedion knew it was flattery, but took pride in it anyway. He did as the war chief bade.

He raised his gaze, for a moment, from the defile to what lay beyond. Darken Wood stretched out to the horizon, tainted by Grimbough's curse. He only spared a momentary thought for the blighted forest; to do more was to court despair. He'd seen more than one stalwart warrior driven to tears by what had become of their home. Better to mind the ravine, and not what was happening in the lowlands. He stared into the gap, his sharp eyes combing the trees at its far end… .

Suddenly he stiffened, snorting in alarm. He reached over his shoulder again, plucked a shaft from his quiver and notched it on his bowstring. He let out a trilling whistle, and along the ravine's mouth his scouts readied their own bows.

Arhedion spat parsnip juice, licking his lips anxiously. Then the rowan trees at the bottom of the defile rustled, bright orange berries falling from their branches. Arhedion whistled again, sharper this time. All along the ravine's mouth, bows creaked as centaurs pulled back their strings. A third signal would send a score of deadly shafts soaring down the slope.

A heartbeat later, a lone figure stepped out of the trees. Arhedion trained his sights on it, then checked himself suddenly, gaping in disbelief. The figure at the bottom of the ravine was neither Skorenos nor centaur. It walked on two legs instead of four. Sunlight glinted on its bronze, winged helmet.

"Shave my tail," Arhedion swore. "I don't believe it,"

As he watched, two more humans joined the first. Last of all came a horse-man, whose chestnut coat and ash-blond mane he knew well enough. Arhedion laughed aloud.

"Trephas!" he called. "Chislev's withers, is it really thee?"

Below, Trephas answered with a shout of his own, then reached to his back and produced a gleaming, double-bladed axe. Seeing this, Arhedion stood bolt upright, then dropped his bow and flung his arms up toward the sky, yelling with wild joy.

His warriors stared at him as though he'd gone mad; it only made him laugh harder, until tears streaked his cheeks. "Put up thy bows, fellows," he said. "At last, we've got a chance."

Lysandon was a ramshackle gathering of crude lean-tos, skin tents and campfires, clustered in a narrow cleft between two towering peaks. It had been built in the image of Ithax, with the warriors' dwellings clustered in the center of the town, around a broad, grassy sward-the horsefolk's new Yard of Gathering. It was smaller than Ithax, and more crowded. When Arhedion escorted the companions into town, word spread quickly that Trephas and the humans had returned at last from their quest, bearing the lost axe of Peldarin.