The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns (22 page)

Saberrak pulled a spear from a tree as he ran to catch up with the elven swordswoman, his nose caught much more than lizardmen behind him. He sniffed the speartip, noticing the black paste smeared all over the metal head and upper section of the wooden shaft. He had smelled something similar in the arenas of Unlinn from his life as a slave gladiator. “The spears are poisoned
Shinayne, be careful.” h
e snarled and huffed as he ran past her to get the others to find a spot to stand and fight.
Saberrak the gray snapped the spear and threw it into the forest, then drew his greataxe and the curved shamshir.
Sixteen on a hundred
, he thought,
good odds
.

Cristoff pulled harder
on the reins
, seeing a plateau with few pines and rocky obtrusions ahead of them up the mountain. His men followed, as did Gwenneth and the dwarven priest. “Where is Shinayne?”

James slowed his pace, allowing Saberrak to catch up to him, and his eyes asked the same question
. “Saberrak, where is she?”

“She is doing a little archery lesson I believe. Keep moving, the elf can take care of herself. We make s
tand at that flat spot there.” h
e pointed with his axe toward the plateau they were heading to.

“Minotaur, we are all dead men if we stand and fight.” Cristoff looked up to the flat plateau and back to Saberrak.

“We shall see.” he heard the arrows, knew it had begun, and moved to find his place uphill.

Fewwhhmm!
Fewwhhmm
!
She fired a third arrow from the longbow she had borrowed and another salisan went down screaming in pain. It had been years since Shinayne had fired a bow, yet it came back to her like yesterday
’s lesson
. She moved to the left, seeing dozens of black scaled hunters on two feet rushing up toward her. She drew them off her direction, stopped, and fired again. This time hitting the creature in the thigh, then her second shot went into its stomach. Before it fell, the spears of it and several nearby flew airborne at the elven woman. She turned behind the tree, waited until all seven spears had hit
the tree
or passed by, then turned round the other side of the pine and let loose
another arrow. Yet another forked tongued scream and a hiss as the salisan fell head over scaly tail down the mountain. The enemy horde was now within thirty feet and closing, and she could not gauge how many with just a glance. Shinayne had no time now, her quick elven steps dashed up the trail left by her friends, then she stopped. The elven noble turned and fired again at point blank as one of the lizardmen was faster than the others and had come up behind her. She saw the orange eyes not five
feet from her, its sharp toothed mouth open and hissing. The arrow sunk deep through the reptile’s throat, then another into the chest, and a third into the abdomen. The salisan stopped its charge and fell to its knees, and Shin
ayne kept firing over its reptilian
head. More arrows, as fast as she could draw them and fire, flew into the dark hunting party, two more falling to the ground
from the savage mob
.

Now only fifteen feet away from her enemies, Shinayne slung the bow and ran with the quiver in hand up to the plateau. She reached over the lip of the rocky ledge, some distance from where the horses had gone up. As the elf pulled herself up, a hand reached down and grabbed hers. James Andellis pulled the elven woman up onto even and stable ground. She toss
ed the bow and quiver with only a few arrows remaining in it
to the archer she had taken it from, and then drew her blades.

“Did you kill one?” Saberrak asked challengingly as he lowered his stance and prepared for the onslaught of whatever was hunting them.

“No. I kil
led eight, horned one.
” s
he caught her b
reath, and backed up closer to J
ames, Saberrak,
Zen and C
ristoff.
She noticed the line of five human archers behind the line of five soldiers who had drawn longblades and shields next to their lord. Gwenneth was behind them with the horses, staff in hand, waiting like the rest of them to see what would come over the ledge.

“Men, you stay in formation and protect the left center and flank. We will take the right. Archers, continue to fire to the sides to prevent any surround. When you are out of arrows, draw blades and protect the wizard and the horses.
Cut them down quickly, Alden have mercy.
” Lord Cristoff raised his sword, feeling the pull of his heavy armor and shield, and waited for the moment to order them to fire.
He heard the dwarf praying in his native tongue and saw him take a knee and rest his shaved head on the head of his warhammer. Cristoff looked to his right and noticed James with eyes closed whispering something as his blade touched his face in some form of a salute. Shinayne was standing straight, turned to the side, blades low, poised and
ready. He glanced at Saberrak
who was crouched low with his weapons crossed in front of his horns, staring at the edge of the plateau. The Lord of Saint Erinsburg
looked behind, above and past Gwenne. He noticed an opening, manmade for certain maybe four or five hundred feet up the
steep
summit. It was a carved stone entrance, a perfect semicircle of dark stone engraved into the mountainside. Cristoff looked harder, seeing trees of strange giant leaves arranged in rows in front of the fifty foot high cavern opening.

“Where is the scroll?”
asked the noble lord as he looked at the small formation about to stand against far too great a force.

“I gave it to
Zen to keep pr
otected under his armor. Why?” t
he minotaur huffed quietly, not wanting to be distracted as he heard the clawing and trampling of the score of lizardmen nearing the edge.

“If this does not go well
Zen, there is a cavern entrance above us five hundred feet. Get the scroll inside there before it is too late.
” s
eeing the black reptilian heads of at least thirty salisans climb over the ledge, spears and small blades in their clawed hands, Cristoff cu
t down with his swordarm for his
men to fire.

Before any arrows landed into the first wave of lizardmen hunters, a scorching blast of white heat, followed by three more, si
zzled through the air overhead
. Four salisans screamed out in pain as their mi
dnight scales erupted in flames
then fell
down off the cliff in trails of smoke. Gwenne raised her staff after her arcane blasts had done their work, and summoned a protective barrier around the plateau. Just in time
,
as spears tipped with poison floundered through the watery magic wall and fell harmlessly all around the warriors prepared to fight.

The archers fired into the mass of advancing lizardmen, a few falling to the ground only to be trampled and climbed over by their kin as they charged the sixteen on the plateau with just under a hundred remaining. Saberrak moved first, charging forward and impaling one creature on his horns, then sweeping with his greataxe into the flank of another. His muscles tightened as his slashed the curved shamshir across the neck of a third salisan warrior. The lizard hunters thrust spears at him, and claw
ed up at the towering minotaur, who now had their red blood all over him from brutal swings of his weapons.
His scale armor saw its first battle scars, deflecting many spearheads and dagger cuts.
Two brave salisa
ns jumped on top of him
, while a third charged him from the front in an attempt to topple the horned gladiator.

As the black scaled sali
san hunters swarmed over the edge
, the archers released their arrows, one after another into the mass of reptilian adversaries. One of the bowmen drew his shortblade and withdrew to
stand next to Gwenneth Lazlette, as he was quickly out of arrows. “I will stand to protect you, Lady Lazlette.”

“I do not think I will be needing any, soldier.” Gwenne raised her hand, concentrating on the arcane barrier still, and directed her palm at a charging salisan. “
Grimvalim tesraunim cavail!”
the air around the creature filled with black mist for a moment, leaving the lizardman frozen in place, unmoving and still. Slowly over the next few sec
onds, it turned into gray stone, then ash.

“Well
then, you can protect me.” t
he young soldier stood closer to the black robed wizard, just in case anything would happen to
get past her spells.

Cristoff’s men stepped forward with their lord, shields forward and stance low as a wave of triple their number crash
ed into them with spear, dagger
, and hissing bites. They stood tight together, Cristoff in the middle for cover. The veteran lord cut across the soft abdomen of a salisan in front of him, then turned his wrist up, slashing through the neck of another. His men began to attack, blocking poisoned spears with their oval steel shields, then plunging longswords into the horde of lizardmen that were driving them back from the ledge.

Azenairk swung his warhammer, it thudded into the spine of a scaled creature that was on top of the minotaur. It fell to the ground, hissing and cursing in some snake-like language. Zen put his heavy boot on its throat to stop the noise, then pounded his weapon down, caving in the skull on the salisan.
The dwarven priest of Vundren swung again at one of the black lizard spawn that had begun to swarm and tear into Saberrak. Twice his hammer cracked bone and scales before it let go. Claws and fangs scratched over his shield in rage, and the dwarf felt his head bleeding and burning. The dwarf rolled backward, the creature with him. He let loose his shield as he rose from the ground, leaving his enemy flat on its back holding the shield. He cracked down on the salisans knee, and its head shot forth from the pain of shattered bone. Before the screeching hiss issued, Zen placed two hands on the shaft of his weapon and struck its skull so hard the neck snapped from the blow. He reached to get his shield from the dead salisan then felt the sharp pain of a speartip in his forearm.
He pulled the crude wooden weapon from his arm, it having pierced his steel plate at just the right spot. He threw it to the ground, picked up his shield, and looked for the beast that had just speared him. Zen shook his head, feeling a bit dizzy all the sudden in the middle of the battle.

James deflected another spear attack, then another, barely keeping up with the mass that had begun to surround he and Shinayne to the right of the flat ground. The knight of Chazzrynn felt vulnerable without his shield, yet seeing the elven swordswoman slicing through many salisans at his side reinforced his courage.
He parried another spear thrust and countered with a thrust into the lizardmans chest. As he withdrew his blade, covered in blood, he ducked a dagger cut and claw swipe from another creature. His crimson-soaked blade pulled out of his enemy’
s ribs in time to parry and unexpected
spear thrust
; the griffon wing crosspiece of his former lord’s sword caught the attack
inches from his neck. His broadsword thrust forward, piercing the scales of one salisans chest, his left hand grabbed the spear from another. James Andellis slashed across the face then the stomach of the black scaled beast, sending it hissing off of the cliff. He threw the s
pear at a third salisan warrior
and the tip buried deep above its groin. He turned to see many more than he could count advancing on him and Shinayne, and
then
a
human man behind them
, cloaked in black
. James kept fighting the overwhelming numbers
of reptile savages
as they passed through the shimmering barri
er of magical force, and held ba
ck his impulses to withdraw.

Two blades pulled fee of the falling salisan, leaving his body falling limp at her feet. Shinayne
’
s curved longblade parried a spear thrust, then her shortblade split the creature wide open across the lower abdomen. Before it could hiss out in pain, the elven longsword cut through its neck and the head dropped to the ground next to many of its dead kin. Lady T’Sarrin spun low, cleaving two scaled savages at the knees. She had noticed the silent human stalking toward her up the side of the mountain, and also the way his hands rested on his pommels as he walked. She knew who it was, and was determined to get to him before he reached the plateau.
Her boot heel kicked one of the injured salisans down, providing her with a jumping off point. She stepped back, then rapidly dashed on top of the backs of her fallen enemies and sprung through the air off of the ledge. Shinayne landed with a tucked roll far below her allies. On the side of the mountain, only she, two salisan warriors, and Alec Silverblade stood facing each other.

“Your face is prettier than I remember. I assume you wish another lesson?” the elven noble circled her three adversaries, staring at the scarred human she had kicked into the bay only three nights ago.

“Vimm, rip her legs off, but leave me
the face.” Alec Silverblade
drew his rapier and shortblade as the savage salisan leader and his best warrior charged the elf.