Salgor got a firm grip on his axe. His heart beat faster, as his breathing quickened. He had fire in his eyes as he raised his head. He stared at Loung with a menacing intensity the Tariykan found hard to match. “You shouldn’t have broken his axe. And you really shouldn’t have hurt that boy.”
Salgor had no way of knowing it was actually the minotaur, nor would it have mattered at that moment. Despite the line of naked steel in front of him, the dwarf actually jumped towards the Tariykan. Loung reacted as the dwarf sprang forward, “Now! Kill him!”
Swords and daggers shot forwards from all sides. All the men followed the forward movement of the dwarf and aimed their weapons for him. Loung had his weapon ready, but he backed up to stay out of harm’s way.
As the rest committed to their actions, Salgor dropped to the ground and rolled backward, reversing direction so fast that it was hard to react in time. The men in front of him had only air to hit. The men behind him were springing forward, trying to reach the dwarf as he charged Loung. The dwarf rolled into the legs of the men eager to hit him from behind. They tripped and fell amongst their companions who had surged in from the other sides. Screams were heard as weapons found flesh. Loung watched the pile intently, losing track of his opponent.
The first bolt of magical lightening from Mel’s wand flew through the camp, followed closely by a second. Loung ducked behind a tent but watched the pile of men to see what had happened to the axe wielder. Salgor Bandago, worshipper of Daerkfyre, jumped up from behind the other side of the pile. Several other mercenaries and sailors remained uninvolved in the tangle, and they stood in a position that still separated the two warriors.
The dwarf roared at the Tariykan with anger in his eyes, “You are going to wish you hadn’t been born!”
Loung smirked a reply. The Tariykan already knew he was a better fighter than the dwarf. There were also several men between him and the short warrior. “Try to reach me before I teach you a lesson in humility, dwarf.”
Another magical bolt of energy from Mel arrived to help his friend out. A blinding flash of lightening erupted between the Tariykan and the dwarf, throwing apart the pile of men in a blast of energy. The group of mercenaries, blasted and burned, either ran for cover or rolled about dazed. There was now a clear path between the two antagonists.
“Gladly,” replied Salgor as he charged.
* * * * *
Revwar looked down upon the smith with the elvish blade. He smiled in amusement at the sight. The elf made a few quick gestures to rid himself of this nuisance. Trestan couldn’t hit the elf, and he didn’t dare try something as desperate as throwing the sword. Instead, he got ready to dodge whatever spell was thrown his way. The young human spun the Sword of the Spirit in front to parry any attack.
The spell was one he had seen before. Three flaming swords appeared in front of the elf wizard and flew forward. One was high and to the left, another high and to the right, and the last one was low and centered towards Trestan’s legs. The young smith leaped forward and slid into the ground feet-first. Two blades sailed high, but the last was coming straight for him. All the young man’s concentration focused on that last sword. The elvish blade whipped across and parried the flaming missile. As before, every missile disappeared into thin air regardless of whether it hit or missed. Trestan scrambled to his feet again.
Revwar hadn’t paid much thought to the young man after releasing his spell. The elf wizard flew closer to the camp to survey the battle. He saw the mercenaries being routed by Mel’s magic, as well as several bodies on the ground and several flattened, burning tents. The elf noted Salgor and Loung fighting, and he saw that the other humans weren’t offering much help to the Tariykan. He scowled at how badly their men were losing to a handful of young attackers. Then his vision caught someone else familiar who looked to need his help.
The elf wizard drifted to the ground on the north side of the camp. Lying there under some trees was the cleric Savannah. She was still alive, though she had not regained consciousness yet. Trestan wasn’t very far from the two of them. The young smith worried that if Revwar could get Savannah back into the battle, then all was lost for sure. Trestan was about to shout to Mel and point out the elf’s position, but Revwar cast a spell.
A misty field shimmered in the air between Revwar and Mel. The young smith guessed it might be a barrier to keep anyone from harming the elf before he could finish whatever he was doing. Most likely, to protect him from Mel, who was quite noticeable from the steady barrage of magical bolts launching into the camp. The field didn’t separate Trestan from the wizard. With sword in hand, Trestan moved to confront the most dangerous opponent visible.
* * * * *
Blast after blast flew from the wand. The gnomish sorcerer sent a bolt at every pocket of men that stood too close together. Mel shouted between bursts of energy, “That’s how we cook rats back home…mess with my buddies, you get stung…I bet he wished he had a shield…oh, you still got a spine do you…who’s next?”
Mercenaries screamed, ran or died. Anyone of them that tried to charge Mel died without getting close. Others who raised a crossbow were stricken the moment they tried to aim it. Several ran away from the magical barrage, opting to try and get to a rowboat. The camp clearing full of armed men had become a graveyard. Small trees burned, grass fires were everywhere, and not a single tent still stood. The exiled son of the Bellringer family, (renowned makers of fine bells, chimes, gongs, and other acoustical instruments), had taken out more enemies than the rest of the companions combined.
Mel looked over the tip of his smoking wand. Not a single enemy threatened to attack him or get close. Aside from his friends in the camp, most of their enemies seemed to be fleeing or they were fighting too close to the dwarf to risk a shot. As Cat looked onward in awestruck shock, holding her unblooded rapier in her hand, Mel jumped up on a rock and raised his arms in triumph.
He proclaimed, “NEVER mess with a gnome sorcerer that worships a dwarven battle god!”
* * * * *
Loung sidestepped Salgor’s first attack. A foot arced in to deliver a solid kick to the dwarf’s ribs. The battleaxe came around as Salgor realized the move, slicing a thin line along Loung’s bare chest. The Tariykan stepped back as the axe continued to twirl in a deadly dance. Salgor brought down an overhead swing that barely missed. Loung again stepped to the side just in time. The martial artist was pelted with splinters erupting from a shattered barrel that couldn’t dodge near as well. For a moment the axe was stuck, so Loung delivered a closed fist to Salgor’s face. Salgor didn’t move to free the axe at first, opting instead to deliver a punch of his own at the human’s midsection. Both opponents landed hard hits. Salgor freed his axe as Loung again looked for room to maneuver.
The Tariykan used his sickle weapon to trap the axe, but Salgor pulled his weapon back out of reach. Right after it occurred, Salgor changed and stuck his axe too far out again in another swing. This time Loung got the chain wrapped around the axe handle and prepared to disarm his opponent.
Exactly as Salgor predicted he would.
The dwarf had his weight set and pulled the Tariykan with both hands. Loung found himself dragged towards the dwarf’s blade. The axe blade flashed across where Loung’s neck should have been, though the human ducked and rolled under the cut as it was launched. Salgor’s back swing almost caught the rear of his opponent, but Loung Chao preferred to release the grip on his weapon rather than be pulled back into another close call. The Tariykan tumbled away unarmed, and then sprang back into a fighting stance.
“An eye for an eye!” Salgor proclaimed, as he brought his axe down on the sickle-bladed weapon. A couple hits later, Loung’s weapon was in more pieces than Petrow’s waraxe.
A small length of chain dangled from the dwarven battleaxe as Salgor tried to intercept a new attack. The dwarf missed, suffering a hit as the martial artist pounded him hard on the head before leaping beyond his reach. Salgor turned but was forced to react to anothe
r mercenary attempting to spear him. He batted the spear aside, but Loung got behind the mercenary to launch some kind of surprise attack of his own. The dwarf leaned in to head butt the other human with the spear, then used the flat side of his axe to knock the mercenary back towards Loung’s position.
With little time to react, Loung had to jump over the next swing of the axe. Although it missed him, the axe blade cut deeply into the spear wielder. The mercenary with the spear went down for good, as Loung gracefully danced at the edges of Salgor’s reach. Salgor changed angles and came in high. The Tariykan ducked under the blow and turned it into an attack of his own. A foot sweep crashed against the legs of the dwarf. Salgor’s muscular legs were as thick as some tree trunks. The legs didn’t give, and the blade flashed down to deliver another nick on Loung’s upper torso.
The dwarf’s blade tested every bit of agility the Tariykan possessed. The two of them charged and retreated across parts of the clearing as they went. Another mercenary tried to hit Salgor from behind, only to end up being split in two. At that distraction Loung got in a hard kick against the dwarf’s uncovered head.
Salgor couldn’t get his blade around, but he reached out with one hand to grab the Tariykan’s foot. Loung’s limb was caught in an iron grip as he teetered on one foot. The axe arced in for an attempt to sever his leg, but Loung dropped onto his back and brought up his other foot to kick against the weapon hand. The impact met with the dwarf’s fingers, and stopped the axe short of taking Loung’s leg. Salgor lost his grip on the axe. Frustrated, he ignored the dropped axe and grabbed Loung with both hands at the ankle. The Tariykan scrambled on his back, trying to kick free. Salgor summoned his strength and started to pull. The worshipper of Daerkfyre didn’t even know what was behind him, but he decided to use his grip to toss the Tariykan into a tree or such. With the strength of his dwarvish blood pumping through his muscles, he actually swung Loung around in a circle and let him go. The Tariykan went airborne at a low angle, just enough to send him flying over the edge of the bluff.
Salgor hadn’t meant to give his opponent an escape, but Loung was tumbling and rolling down the slope leading to the shoreline. The Tariykan regained his feet and decided he wasn’t going to run back to deal with Salgor. He joined the mass of others driven from the battle by Mel’s wand. Several sailors and mercenaries pushed the rowboats away from shore. They saw their ship as their last hope of escape.
Salgor grabbed his axe and was ready to charge the whole group of sailors alone. He stopped when he realized he couldn’t abandon his friends at the camp. He turned towards the prisoners’ tent.
* * * * *
Petrow was rather rough as he jostled and kicked Lady Shauntay off his body. The handyman tried getting to his feet as the noble’s daughter rolled to the side. Captain Orthymbar moved slightly, trying to get his intact hand on the grip of his saber. Petrow had to kneel at an awkward angle, but he got his hands on the blackened hilt first.
Orthymbar looked up at the young man. Lady Shauntay was trying to get to her feet, after singeing a part of her outfit on a piece of the smoldering tent. Petrow stood staring at their attacker in the midst of shouts, flashes of light, and the screams of the dying. His hands were still mostly stuck behind his torso, but now he held the saber and stood triumphantly. As beaten as their attacker looked, Petrow viewed his own torn, bloody, and now sooty clothes. There was the taste of blood in his mouth from the beating he had received moments ago. Petrow looked down at the new captain with a look that promised death.
Orthymbar scowled up at the young man, “I hope you pay for this in pain.”
Petrow responded, “I already have.”
The handyman set the tip of the blade against Orthymbar’s chest. The young man felt a small amount of remorse about what he was about to do, overshadowed by the hate and fear he held against this man. Orthymbar was lying down, with Petrow standing over him. All Petrow had to do was lean into the blade. After some initial resistance, the blade sank through his opponent until stopped partway through the dirt below. Orthymbar was too battered to offer resistance. His eyes glazed over in death.
Lady Shauntay watched through tears, in shock from the events of the whole morning. Certainly her fantasies about her father and his troops rescuing her were a far cry from reality. She watched Petrow until he started trying to use the blade to cut through his bonds. The saber was firmly planted in the ground and the other man, so she turned away as his movements shook the blade and made the corpse twitch. She stood in the middle of the battle and looked around at the bodies and devastation as if she wasn’t even a part of it.
* * * * *
Revwar put a hand out to check on the cleric. She trembled but didn’t appear conscious. Her eyelids fluttered atop a bloody face. The elf looked to the side and saw the skull helm lying several feet away. Maybe it was the will of her goddess, but the dark cleric was lucky she hadn’t died immediately from a broken neck. The wizard decided to fly the cleric out of there, but he stopped as his elvish ears picked up a noise.
Across the clearing, Cat saw Trestan trying to sneak up behind the elf while still wearing his metal armor. Unless the elf was deaf, there was no way Trestan would catch him by surprise. “Mel! Over there!”
As Cat pointed out the wizard to her gnome companion, she saw the elf was no longer looking down, instead trying to see out of the corner of his eyes. One slender hand reached into a bag of spell items in preparation for some nasty surprise. Trestan would be unlikely to dodge a spell at that close range, or stop the wizard in time.
Mel pointed his wand towards the elf, “That was the elf that passed me on the road! I remember him.”
Mel spoke, and a bright flash and clap of noise followed. The energy of his wand surged at his target, but the misty field between them stopped it. Whatever the elf had erected was too strong for the wand to penetrate. The blast earned the elf’s surprised attention for the briefest of moments.
* * * * *
Trestan saw his opportunity. The elf’s head jerked towards the distant gnome. The lightening couldn’t hurt the caster, but it had distracted him. The young smith abandoned silence to rush the last few steps; the Sword of the Spirit lifted high. Several noisy running steps brought the young man close to the elf in a hurry. Revwar was standing, but still facing away. It seemed the elf should have heard the footsteps behind him by now.
Trestan cleaved the sword downward at his enemy. Revwar spun to the side, avoiding the blade by inches. The sword kicked up dirt not far from Savannah’s body. Trestan had planned ahead to deliver two swings, and even as the tip bounced off the dirt he was bringing it hand over hand in a horizontal slashing attack at the dodging elf.
The blade hit something solid as it went past the elf’s midsection.
Both Revwar and Trestan looked down in surprise. The blade never passed through skin, but it did slash through a bag hanging from the wizard’s belt. An item had fallen through the torn bag to roll near Trestan’s feet.
The young man looked at the object in disbelief. Seeing it here and now shook his concentration at a critical moment. His mouth open in surprise, he looked up to Revwar as if to ask a question. Revwar had his fingers moving for a hasty spell. A word from the elf and a flick of the wrist caught the young smith before he could defend himself.
Trestan tried to reach his sword at the elf. The elf shrank in his vision as he found the air sweeping him up and away. Trestan flew a good distance before crashing against the remains of a tent. The air rushed out of his lungs as he plowed into cloth, crates, and wooden barrels.
* * * * *
Cat and Mel were trying to run around the perimeter of the wizard’s protective field. The half-elf slowed when she saw the object knocked from Revwar’s belongings. She was screaming a moment later as she realized Trestan wasn’t reacting to the next spell. Her heart dropped as she saw the young man flung across half the camp to disappear amidst a collision with debris. Katressa started running again to get around the m
agic field.
Revwar stopped to retrieve the object. The elf looked upset indeed to have his treasure revealed. The item went into another bag and he turned to pick up the cleric. The elf wizard must have had some spell on him to augment his strength, for he easily hoisted the human cleric and cradled her against his body with one arm. His cloak spread to catch the wind and bear him away from the bluff.
He stopped instead, deciding to leave one last parting shot against those who had caused him so much trouble. The elf spoke words and extended one forefinger toward the biggest target. Mel hadn’t gotten around the field, but Cat had outpaced the gnome with her long strides. She followed Revwar’s gaze to see where he was aiming.
Across the clearing stood three of his enemies in a tight group. Salgor was cutting the last ropes free from Petrow. Lady Shauntay stood mute, staring back at the wizard’s offered death with a removed look. The young noble was obviously not straight inside her head, and the circumstances of the past few days had been more than she could handle. All three targets stood within a step of each other as Revwar aimed his spell.
Cat shouted, “Nay!”
The Earthrin Stones 1 of 3: Inheritance of a Sword and a Path Page 27
