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Sorak heard the alarmed cries of the passengers from behind the line of kanks staked at the crest of the slope, and he knew he would never have time to circle the kanks, as the raiders had. Running at top speed, twice as fast as any human could, he leapt ten feet into the air and landed atop one of the kanks. As he fought to maintain his balance on the giant beetle’s slippery carapace, he drew one of his daggers and hurled it.
An elf raider cried out and fell from his crodlu as the blade stuck home, but by then, the others were already atop Ryana’s group.
As Sorak leapt down from the kank and tumbled down the slope, the passengers fled in panic toward the silt.
Ryana moved in with her roustabouts to meet the attack. She brought one elf down with her crossbow, then tossed it aside, drew a dagger and hurled it in one smooth motion, felling another. As she drew her second dagger from her boot, one of the mounted raiders hurled his spear at her. She twisted aside, and it missed her by scant inches. Then she threw her dagger as the elf thundered down upon her, bringing up his blade.
It took him squarely in the chest, and he fell backward off his mount. It was only by diving to one side that Ryana avoided being trampled by the riderless crodlu. She hit the ground, rolled, and came up with her blade in her hands, just as another raider closed with her. She went down to one knee and parried his downward slash, then came up and swept her blade around, opening a deep gash in the raider’s leg as he rode by. He screamed, and blood fountained from the wound, but by then, Ryana was already engaging another opponent.
Several of the roustabouts had fallen, slain or wounded, by the time Sorak reached the scene. He ran straight into the melee and leapt, carrying a Shadow off his mount. He landed on top of the raider and heard the breath whoosh out of his lungs. Before the elf could recover, Sorak grabbed his large, pointed ears and twisted his head sharply.
He heard the sharp crack as the raider’s neck snapped, then felt the breeze of a blade slashing down at him, missing his head by a hair. He ducked down and rolled, came up to his feet, and drew his sword, but by then the raider had already ridden past. And an instant later, Sorak saw why.
Edric stood perhaps a dozen yards away, his hands bound behind him and his ankles tied together. He had been unable to run off toward the rocks with the other passengers, but then he had not wanted to. He hopped toward the raider, and Sorak saw the black-clad elf lean down from his saddle to sweep him up.
But before Sorak could react, he heard another crodlu pounding the ground behind him and turned to meet the attack. He met the Shadow elf’s blade on his own, then ducked and rolled as the raider tried to ride him down. The elf wheeled his mou
nt, and Sorak ran up behind it, slashed the crodlu’s legs. With a screeching cry, the crippled bird went down, and the raider tumbled from the saddle. As he fell, one of the roustabouts pounced on him and brought down his knife.
Sorak turned back to see that the other raider had already hoisted Edric up onto his saddle and slashed his bonds. Edric straddled the crodlu, sitting in front of the rider and bending low, grasping the beast’s long neck for support. The rider urged his mount up the slope on a diagonal path, away from Sorak. There was no way to stop them. As they galloped up the slope, Kieran appeared at the crest.
“Kieran!” Sorak shouted. “Edric is getting away!”
The mercenary drew his dagger as the riders thundered by him, and he threw. The knife struck the raider between the shoulder blades, and he tumbled from his mount, but Edric seized the reins as the crodlu surged up the slope.
Sorak shifted his sword to his left hand and pulled Galdra from his belt. The broken blade glowed with a bright blue aura as he grasped it, flipped it around, and threw it with a powerful, overhand motion. It seemed to leave a blue contrail in its wake as it flew toward Edric and struck him in the shoulder. Sorak heard him cry out, but he retained his seat, slumping in the saddle. The crodlu and its rider disappeared over the crest of the slope.
Sorak spun around, looking for Ryana. He saw at least half a dozen roustabouts lying on the ground, some moving, some perfectly still. He felt a knot forming in his stomach, but then saw her, bending over one of the roustabouts and tearing a strip from his cloak to use as a tourniquet. He exhaled heavily with relief.
Then Kieran was at his side.
Sorak asked, “How goes the battle?”
“It’s over,” Kieran said. “A number of them got away, but at least a score won’t be doing any more raiding. We’ll take the bodies with us into Altaruk and present them to the Jhamris. They may wish to display them as an object lesson to other would-be raiders. Every man who fought tonight will win a reputation. There aren’t many mercenaries who can boast surviving an encounter with the Shadows.”
“How many of ours died?” asked Sorak, glancing back at the bodies littering the shore.
Kieran shook his head. “We’ve made no count as yet, but we lost some good men.” He set his teeth, and Sorak saw a tic in his jaw muscles. “I should have killed that bard.”
“You gave your word you would let him live if he cooperated,” Sorak said. “And he did give us an accurate account of what to expect. Still, now he’ll have to answer to his friends, the Shadows, and only he could have betrayed them.”
Kieran nodded. “They will hold him to accounts, all right, but he’s a slippery character. He may yet talk his way out of it. I hope he does, for I would dearly like to encounter him again. A pity about that special blade of yours.”
“It was broken, anyway,” said Sorak. “It’s no great loss.” But even as he spoke, he wondered. It had returned to him once before; it could yet return to him again. Only time would tell.
“We had best see to the wounded,” he said, then suddenly, he staggered against Kieran as everything started to spin. He felt the mercenary catch him.
“Sorak! Are you wounded?”
Kieran’s voice sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well. The sounds around him receded and Sorak’s vision blurred; he gasped for breath.
Then, slowly, everything came back into focus… but he was elsewhere. And this time, it was not only his body that seemed to have been transported. It was his mind, as well.
He stood in a dark room, illuminated only by one thick candle standing on a wooden table. There was someone seated at that table, a robed figure cloaked in darkness. And he heard a low, raspy voice say, “He is coming. I can feel it.”
The robed figure leaned forward into the light and Sorak tensed inwardly as he saw the shaved skull of a templar. It was an old woman, and on her head she wore a chaplet of beaten silver bearing the crest of Nibenay. She sat in a peculiar posture, with one arm hanging limply at her side, favoring her shoulder as if it were injured.
“It will not be long now,” she said, looking up at him, “but he will surely come. And it will be up to us to stop him.”
