Terry W. Ervin (40 page)

Piyetten scooped up a handful of dirt, picked out the small pebbles and tossed them into the fire. “That’s where we were heading, until we were ambushed. Why aren’t you going there? Lilly wouldn’t say.” He nodded toward Roos. “The Crusader said, ‘Ye need not know, lad.’” He said to Roos, “And I’m not a lad.”

I got the feeling we were being watched the same time Roos reached for his rifle. I grabbed my helmet and picked up my spear before stepping out of the circle of firelight. “See anything?” I whispered.

“We could use ye friend Lilly’s keen senses,” said Roos. “I shall search behind the shelter.”

I couldn’t argue with Roos’ assessment. Something was out there and it wasn’t Lilly. Quiet like zombies, but no rotting stench. “Do you see anything, Piyetten?” It was only then that I noticed he stood facing out into the darkness, silhouetted firelight. “Get away from the fire, out of the light!”

Before I finished, the crack of Roos’ rifle sounded. Piyetten spun to see what Roos had fired at, even though the hut blocked his view. Three forms jumped up from the ground. Goblins! They’d crawled to within thirty yards of the camp. The moonlight bathed their forms, revealing silvery outlines drawing back short bows.

“Down, Piyetten!” I shouted, dodging and rolling right, further away from the fire. He either ignored me or didn’t move fast enough. One arrow shot past him, sticking into sod hut. Even so, he fell to the ground next to the fire with one arrow jutting from his chest and a second buried deep in his stomach.

The echoing blasts from Roos’ revolver mixed with his chanting battle song. Enraged that they’d shot Piyetten, I charged forward, yelling, and crashed among the three goblins. Stabbing, blocking and smashing with my spear. They only had long knives to defend themselves and I made quick work of them.

I felt the pounding ground vibration just as I spotted an ogre closing. I was in the open with no hope of evading it. The Blood-Sword, even if I dared draw it, was lashed fast in its sheath. This ogre was taller than others I’d faced, armed with a spiked club and wearing vertical strips of steel affixed to leather armor across his chest. The protection continued down along breeches to his calves where it met his blunt black boots. A riveted steel helm framed the ogre’s yellow eyes and ragged-toothed grin. The brute’s horn extended through the helm and his rumbling growl reminded me of a closing panzer.

I stepped back, away from the dead goblins and the blood-slickened ground and gripped my spear, looking for a weakness. Besides the ogre’s face, only its ungauntletted hands appeared vulnerable. Unless my foe made a mistake, leaving me an opening, I was doomed.

When the ogre neared within ten yards I yelled out in foul tongue, “Goll grull haw awhk!” I didn’t know what it meant, but I learned it the first night I met Road Toad. It angered the opposing ogres then, and enraged this one now.

I ducked and dodged past on my foe’s right as he swung wild over my head. Bellowing, the battle-armored ogre spun, not losing his footing in the goblin gore as I’d hoped. He swung down, impacting the ground, missing me by inches. I stabbed my spear at his face. He shifted too quickly, and my blow glanced off the side of his helm. I yanked back my spear before he grabbed it with his free left hand.

He stomped forward as I backed away, his bellow shifting to harsh laughter. His yellow eyes sparkled as they caught the moon’s glow. The orange light of our fire at his back made him seem even more hellishly dangerous.

The ogre faked a swing, but I didn’t take the bait. His armor, while protecting him, hindered his movements. Gunfire from Roos’ revolver sounded in the distance beyond the hut.

I faked a charging thrust at my foe’s face, ducked under his swing and stabbed at his calf. My spear’s tip struck and scraped across an armor strip. I dove to my right, slipping past the ogre’s grasping hand, and rolled to my feet, again backing away. I’d avoided being crushed by the stomping ogre’s boot by a fraction of a second.

Sweat ran down my back as the ogre pressed his attack, roaring, “Nash haw dub, ne!”

Two more blasts from Roos’ gun told me he was fighting for his life too. He couldn’t count on aid from me, I was on my own. If I fell, Piyetten would certainly die. I might be able to stop the bleeding from his arrow wounds. And if I fell, the ogre would get the Blood-Sword.

Defensive fighting wouldn’t work. I couldn’t back away faster than my foe could advance, and I couldn’t deflect or parry his powerful blows. Instead of retreating, I ducked inside the ogre’s next attack, a forehand swing. It placed his free hand out of position to reach my spear and left his right shoulder vulnerable if I could get past his armor.

I spun away with ogre blood on my spear’s tip. Hardly more than a prick, but painful. The ogre stood tall, reappraising me. Then he snarled and closed again. This time each step was measured and steady. No longer enraged, he moved in for the kill.

A dark furred creature rushed in and sprung onto the ogre’s back. My focus on the ogre had been so intense that the attack surprised me even more than it did my foe.

I advanced, ducking under the wildly swinging club. It only took a second for the ogre to grab the compact, long tailed, creature trying to sink its teeth in the gap between the brute’s helm and armor collar. The battle was too fast to get a clear view of Lilly as the ogre hurled her away. She shook it off and like a magnet to iron, charged back at him.

Taking advantage of the distraction, I slipped behind and drove my spear deep between the metal strips protecting the ogre’s calf. A bellow, followed by a club whooshing inches over my head, rewarded my effort as I crouched and stabbed upward, digging into the ogre’s gut as it spun to face me.

With a shrill squeal, Lilly again launched onto the ogre’s back. It ignored her and grabbed my spear’s shaft, pulled the tip out of its stomach, and tried to yank the weapon from my grasp.

When the ogre lifted its club upward to bring it down on me, I let go of my spear. The club barely missed me, denting and shaking the ground upon impact. I had my sword drawn before my foe raised his club for another blow.

The ogre whipped my spear away and grabbled Lilly, again pulling her gnashing teeth from his neck. This time he slammed her to the ground and raised his heavy boot to stomp her. I yelled, “Hey yah!” trying to divert his attention back to me as I charged in.

Stunned, Lilly rolled over, but not fast or far enough to escape. I drove my shoulder into the brute’s knee. The ogre’s mass sent me sprawling. Even so, I hit with enough force to make the ogre miss Lilly.

Crack-pow—Clang! The ogre’s head snapped forward and the brute staggered with a small dent in its helmet, but didn’t fall. Not thirty yards away, Roos had already torn another paper cartridge with his teeth, preparing to reload his rifle.

The ogre shook his head and looked around. I moved in on my disoriented foe and stabbed his already bleeding calf.

Realizing the real danger, the ogre knocked me away with his fist, but didn’t follow up. Instead, he flung his club at Roos. The Crusader sidestepped the whirling weapon, allowing it to tear up the ground as it spun and tumbled past. Undeterred, the ogre rushed Roos. The Crusader pulled the ramrod from the barrel of his gun, tossed it aside, and reached for a firing cap.

I leapt to my feet and chased, but the ogre already had a lead. Lilly shot in from the right and drove her body into the right ankle of the ogre as the foot swung forward. She hit the leg hard enough so that it caught the ogre’s left calf coming forward. The brute crashed to the ground and skidded forward.

Our foe lifted itself from the ground just in time to see Roos level his rifle and pull the trigger. The echoing shot shattered the ogre’s nose on its way into the brute’s brain. The ogre dropped with a thud ten feet from the Crusader. Its hands continued to twitch and flex for a few seconds.

I couldn’t believe it was over until I stopped next to the ogre and stabbed its left hand. No reaction; it was dead. I looked around, realizing how hard I was breathing. “You okay?” I asked Roos.

He looked at his right forearm, probing with his fingers through a slice in his wool sleeve. “The enemy managed a shallow wound. And ye, Hawk?”

I rubbed my shoulder where the ogre’s fist had hit me. “Maybe a bruise.” Lilly walked up next to me, and sat up on her haunches. It was the first chance I had to get a good look. Her fur was a glossy mahogany from nose to rump while paler along her stomach. Her scaly, laterally compressed tail appeared to balance her upright stance. I stared into the werebeast’s dark eyes. She looked just like a giant muskrat, but her eyes held more intelligence than any animal. “Lilly,” I said awkwardly, “are you injured?”

She shook her head, not side to side, but more like an animal trying to shake water off its fur. Then she ran back toward the fire.

“Piyetten,” I said to Roos, and ran after her. “The goblins shot him with arrows.” I pulled the pouch holding ground white oak bark from my belt. I didn’t care if Roos and Lilly learned my secret. “I can heal him, maybe. Or at least stop his bleeding.”

Piyetten had fallen, lying on his back next to the fire. One arrow shaft jutted up from his stomach, a second from his ribcage on his left side. Even next to the glowing fire, Piyetten was pale and unresponsive to our presence. I tore his blood-soaked shirt away from the wounds. Lilly stuck her furred muzzle close, startling me. She wrinkled her nose and backed away.

His chest didn’t rise or fall. I checked for breathing and a heartbeat, but couldn’t detect either. Lilly emitted a muttering squeal while pacing back and forth.

Roos stood next to Piyetten’s body, holding a goblin arrow. “Poison.” He knelt, showing me the black sticky coating over the crude arrow head. It extended about an inch up the barbed shaft. “Unless ye are a powerful healer, Hawk, the lad’s fate is sealed.”

I knew goblins fouled their arrows with their own waste, but I’d never heard of poison. Not wanting to believe Piyetten was dead, I felt for a pulse along his neck while shouting into his ear, “Come on, Piyetten! You can’t die.”

Roos examined Piyetten, feeling for a heartbeat and listening for breath. I sat back, caught between anger and despair. Roos shook his head. “We must move. We can bring the lad and bury him properly.” He scanned the moonlit terrain. “To remain here invites further peril.”

I stood, and my gaze fell to the Crusader’s bloody arm. “Let me look at that.”

“Ye cannot heal me,” he warned.

At first his statement took me aback, but I recalled a Crusader’s immunity to magic. “I can help you wrap it. Stitch it closed if needed.”

Grimacing, he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a short, deep gash. “A lesser imp stabbed me with a knife. Bandages are in my pack.” Before entering the sod hut, he asked, “Do ye have mastery over thy beast, Lilly?”

The giant muskrat stared back at Roos, and bowed her head once.

“Thy senses are superior to a man’s. After we break camp, ye will lead us to a new one?”

Lilly bowed her head once again and scurried out of the dying firelight.

The next morning we stood around Piyetten’s shallow grave. It was the best we could manage with the tangle of roots in the narrow stand of hickory trees where we’d sought refuge for the rest of the night.

Over the years a farmer had taken heavy stones and piled them along the edge of his field. We used some of them to finish Piyetten’s grave. I didn’t know what to say when we’d finished the task. Lilly stood next to me, leaning on my shoulder and sniffling. I’d seen plenty of death, but this one was my fault. I should have sent him away sooner.

Roos and I had spent part of the night digging the grave and going over my experience in Sint Malo. When Lilly returned at the setting of the moon, we discussed the basis for the attack. In addition to an ogre and goblins, Roos had battled a human sorcerer. Lilly’s confirmation that the dead man bore a red tattoo of a saber-toothed cat on his forearm convinced me the attack was revenge for saving the Sun-Fox, Fenwick. Lilly’s guilt led her to believe it was slavers seeking to recover their property and to kill those who’d taken it. After describing my encounter with Belinda the Cursed, Roos felt it was she who instigated the attack to gain possession of the Blood-Sword.

There was no way to know the true reason for the attack and Piyetten’s death, and that made it even more difficult.

I stepped forward, looking down at the pile of stones, beneath where the young man’s head lay. “Piyetten was a brave man who wanted to become a warrior. He took the brunt of the attack for me. He died facing the enemy.” I gripped Lilly’s hand. “He died free.”

When I’d finished, Roos stepped forward and knelt next to the grave. He said a long prayer. The Crusader started with hands pressed together, clasping his cross and beads. It ended with his arms outstretched, looking to the sky. I didn’t understand the words, but Roos spoke them with intensity and passion. When I asked, he simply explained it was Latin.

2,873 Years before the Reign of King Tobias of Keesee

“Power levels dropping,” called Dr. Johnston. The physicist tapped at his keyboard and screen displays without noticeable result.

Dr. Mindebee strode toward his fellow scientist, but staggered in midstride. “What was that?”

“Did the nuke plant meltdown?” asked one of the assistants.