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A pirate raced at Jommy and swung a vicious overhead blow with a weighted cutlass, a blow that was likely either to break Jommy’s blade or cleave him from shoulder to stomach. Training and experience lent the young man the reflex to knock the blade to the right while dodging to the left, avoiding most of the force. The sand on the beach was terrible footing, so Jommy ignored the impulse to spin and slice the man’s spine, instead electing to throw a right elbow at his jaw. Pain shot up his arm to his shoulder as he connected, and the man’s eyes glazed over. Stepping back, Jommy slashed sideways with his blade, slicing the man’s neck. As blood spurted upwards, Jommy continued to back away, unable to take his eyes off the horror that rose up before him.
Kaspar’s voice cut through the air: ‘Hit them hard: now!’
The soldiers were well trained, and despite their growing sense of dread as the conjured being rose up to a height of nearly nine feet, they charged. Those on the beach were dedicated, fanatics even, but they were not trained soldiers, and suddenly the left side of their defence collapsed.
With nowhere to retreat, they fought viciously, but within seconds the soldiers of Kaspar’s command had killed half a dozen and had the rest retreating through the water to the scant protection offered by beached boats. Jommy faced a more determined defence, as soldiers from the Kingdom, Roldem and Kesh joined him in attacking the middle, mere yards away from the creature.
The raiders fought like men possessed, as if they were more afraid to retreat back to where the smouldering creature waited than die facing mortal men. Then the creature strode forward, and the man next to Jommy howled in agony as the diabolical being snatched him up by the neck. The sound of searing meat replaced the choked-off cry and the apparition tossed the soldier aside like a broken toy. Jommy saw flame coming from the creature’s hands and could feel heat waves emanating from it as its appearance continued to evolve. The grey-blue skin was now crisscrossed with glowing red cracks, looking like nothing so much as molten metal under a rock crust, and where rain struck it sizzled and gave off tiny explosions of steam.
Jommy leaped backward, almost falling as he crashed into a soldier coming up behind him. ‘Sir!’ the man shouted in his ear. ‘Another two boats have put in to the north and more of the bastards are coming down on our right flank.’
Jommy hesitated, then realized the soldier must be waiting, and that he was a senior officer, or at least as far as the men near him were concerned. Something had to be done to avoid a total rout. ‘On me!’ he shouted. ‘Rally to me!’
Men hurried to him while the now-flaming monster snagged another screaming man and ripped his arm off while his torso was engulfed in fire.
‘Form circle!’ shouted Jommy, and the men nearby gathered in a tight knot around him. To the soldier who had warned him of the move on their flank, he shouted, ‘Find the General, and tell the others to fall back to wherever he is. We’ll hold them here! Go!’
The messenger ran off.
‘Shield wall!’ was Jommy’s next command, and the trained soldiers linked shields and suddenly he and two others, both irregulars from Krondor, stood in a tiny fortress of shields.
He had no faith in his order. Jommy knew that should the advancing monster strike the front of the shield wall, several of them would be instantly incinerated and the defensive position would collapse. But it was the only thing he could think of doing to buy a few minutes for the rest of the men to fall back to wherever Kaspar waited.
The creature stood motionless for a moment, and the magic-user pointed at the men clustered around Jommy with his staff and shouted something in the alien tongue. The creature took a great stride towards them and Jommy shouted, ‘Steady!’
The creature halted for a moment, and raised his fist up high above them. Jommy shouted, ‘Turtle!’ He dropped his sword and sat down hard, yanking the two men next to him down to keep them from injury.
The men raised their shields overhead, and braced themselves as they would for a barrage of falling arrows. The flaming monster’s fist, now the size of an anvil, crashed down on a pair of shields, causing one man to go to his knees and the other to collapse completely.
‘Bloody hell!’ said one of the irregulars, his eyes wide in terror.
‘Scatter!’ shouted Jommy: confusion was the only way to save as many men as possible. The two irregulars crawled away, while the soldiers did as they had been trained, each man running off directly away from the centre of the turtle, putting as much space as possible between themselves and their comrades. Those in the front fell straight back, then turned and fled.
Kaspar’s own archers had attempted to hurt the creature, but their arrows were having no effect, the iron heads bouncing off the thing’s hide while the shafts burst into flame. Waves of heat rolled over Jommy, as if he were standing before an open oven.
With a sweep of arms now as long as a spear, the creature knocked men aside as if he were playing with children. Whatever he touched burst into flames: men lay screaming and dying.
As Jommy pulled back, the creature seemed to notice him, and started towards him. Jommy braced himself, sure that in an instant he would be either crushed or burned to death. As he raised his sword to defend himself he saw beyond the creature a figure rising out of the surf. Water dripping off his face, his clothing soaked through, Jim Dasher seemed to appear out of nowhere as he came up from a low crouch to stand behind the magician. With a deft move so fast Jommy could barely follow it, the Krondorian thief raised his hands before him, crossed at the wrist, and flipped something over the magician’s head. Suddenly the spell-caster was yanked backwards as Jim brought his knee up into the magician’s spine, and even with the pounding of the surf, the tattoo of the rain and the screams from dying men Jommy could hear the snap of the man’s spine. Blood sprayed from the magician’s neck and he waved his arms for a brief instant before going limp.
As the magician died, the creature faltered, and then stopped and looked around as if waiting to be told what to do next. He howled, an echoing sound that grated on the ears and sent shivers through Jommy’s body. Then the monster lashed out, first one way, then another. Men scattered, even those wearing the black head-cloths more intent on putting space between themselves and the apparition than in continuing the fight. Jommy threw himself backwards, avoiding a sudden reversal of direction by the flaming creature, and rolled on the sand, coming to his feet in a crouch, his sword ready.
Then he saw Servan running in his direction, shouting something that Jommy couldn’t make out, but pointing directly at him. At the same instant Jommy sensed someone behind him and realized that Servan wasn’t pointing at him, but at something behind him. He fell to his left, rolled and turned, seeing the blade cut through the air that would have taken his head had Servan not warned him.
Jommy didn’t even think of trying to stand, but instead lashed out with his sword, cutting the man across the heel, severing the tendon. The man screamed and almost fell on top of Jommy. Jommy now shoved his sword point into the raider’s armpit. Blood flowed down the man’s side as the raider tried to retaliate with a looping blow designed to take Jommy’s arm off.
Jommy rolled again hearing the sword strike sand. Now he was on his back. Knowing this was as poor a position for a fight as could be, Jommy kept rolling until he could again see his opponent. Then someone stepped over him and a sword point thrust down, ending the raider’s life.
Servan reached down and pulled Jommy to his feet. ‘We’ve got to fall back!’ shouted the young nobleman. ‘That thing is still killing anything near it, and it’s getting hotter by the minute.’
Jommy didn’t need his companion to tell him that; he could feel waves of heat rolling off the creature. Steam exploded from every step it took in the wet sand. Men on all sides were still locked in struggle, but there was nothing remotely organized about the conflict, and Jommy knew there was no way to coordinate any sort of counter-attack or even organize an orderly withdrawal. ‘We need to have everyone fall back to that big rock over there!’ Jommy shouted, pointing with his sword.
Servan nodded. ‘I don’t know where the General or the Captain are.’
They paused and looked up and down the cove, until Servan cried, ‘Up there!’
Jommy saw Kaspar and Captain Stefan fighting back to back twenty yards up the hillside as half a dozen pirates circled them. Jommy looked at Servan.
‘What now?’
Jommy was a good leader in the field and had a rudimentary grasp of tactics, but Servan was a born leader, a first rate strategist as well as an instinctive tactician. ‘That big rock is our rally point, and I’ll try to get to them—’
Jommy looked over again to where Kaspar and Stefan fought, and saw Jim Dasher – again seemingly out of nowhere – appear behind the two men fighting Kaspar. With a dagger in each hand he stabbed both men in the back of the neck, and they dropped instantly to the ground. Suddenly it wasn’t six against two, but four against three, and as one of the men turned to see what happened to his companions, Kaspar ran him through and it was three against three.
Jommy shouted, ‘I’ll go this way, you go that, get the men moving! Get word to the General where we rally!’
Servan nodded and ran off, circling away from the flailing tower of flames that howled and lashed out in all directions. Jommy headed down the beach to where a knot of his men faced off against an equal number of pirates. Both sides seemed more concerned with getting untangled than with killing one another. Jommy shouted, ‘To me!’
Breaking off the fight, his men retreated towards him, and within moments a fairly orderly withdrawal was underway. Moving to the agreed-upon position, Jommy motioned for the men to follow. ‘Rally at that rock. Look for the General!’
Now the conjured creature, burning as brightly as the hottest fire Jommy had ever seen, lumbered in his direction. ‘Watch out!’ he warned and motioned for his men to move off and circle around to the rally point.
As they pulled away from the flaming monstrosity, men shouted that another boat was landing. ‘Things are getting out of hand,’ Jommy said to himself. As he glanced to see where the raiders were positioning themselves, he realized he was being flanked. If he wasn’t careful, the enemy he had left behind would use his retreating men as a screen, allowing them to loop around and hit Kaspar’s position from the rear.
‘You, you, and you,’ Jommy said pointing at the three nearest soldiers, two from Roldem and one from Kesh, ‘follow me.’ He gave a great war cry and charged at the closest raider.
From behind him he heard one of the soldiers from Roldem shout, ‘Are you mad?’
Jommy shouted back, ‘I want them to think so!’
The others followed and Jommy raced straight at the pirates who, seeing the men running straight at them, braced themselves for a charge. Just short of contact, Jommy shouted, ‘Run!’ and turned and fled back up the beach towards the hillside where Kaspar and Stefan were organizing a defensive position. A quick glance over his shoulder made Jommy wonder at the futility of that: the creature was becoming ever more enraged, thrashing out at anyone within reach. The only benefit this gave to Kaspar’s forces was that the raiders now had to consider the monster as much as the men they were fighting. The difference was that Kaspar could organize his forces and pull them up the hillside to the base camp on the ridge a mile away if he had to. The raiders had nowhere to go but try to launch the boats, but now two of them were flaming from the horror’s touch and no man looked willing to brave getting past it to the remaining boats. Some would no doubt flee up the coast to where the fourth boat had landed, but Jommy doubted it could hold all who wanted to escape the monster.
‘They’ll be coming this way in moments,’ he shouted. ‘Get to the General and dig in!’
Already fatigued from the short but intense struggle on the beach, men ran uphill in the mud, and suddenly Jommy realized there was no sound of fighting behind him. All he could hear was the echoing bellows of the monster, the rain in the woods above, and the panting of men nearly out of breath as they struggled to get to safety.
They reached Kaspar’s position and saw men furiously making defensive positions, with brush and rocks and digging small trenches with swords and daggers. All the while the bowmen struggled to keep their strings dry enough to be effective against the enemy who were surely only moments behind those coming up the hill.
‘Here they come!’ shouted Kaspar.
Jommy reached the first line of defenders and turned. A knot of raiders had formed at the base of the path and were fanning out to attack. He glanced to the north and saw another band of raiders fleeing for the remaining boat. As if reading his thoughts, Kaspar said, ‘If we get through this we’ll send a squad that way to round up any stragglers.’
‘Why shouldn’t we get through this, General?’ asked Servan, still out of breath.
‘They’re attacking uphill and we’re ready,’ said Jommy.
‘I’m not worried about those cutthroats,’ said Kaspar. ‘It’s the thing following them that bothers me. It’s stopped getting bigger, but it’s setting fire to everything it touches.’
‘And we’re standing uphill,’ said Captain Stefan.
‘Ah, maybe we should pull back and get on the other side of the ridge?’ observed Jommy.
‘No time,’ said Kaspar. ‘Archers!’ he shouted.
A few arrows arched overhead and the attackers scattered, but the bow fire was ineffective. ‘Damn rain,’ said Servan.
The men hurrying up the hill looked at those waiting for them and just kept coming. Jommy flexed his knees, his sword ready to parry or strike; and then it struck him. The only battle cries were from his own men: those coming at them were labouring, their panting breath barely able to meet the demands of the climb, let alone enabling them to shout or scream. There was a grim resignation on their faces. They were determined but they didn’t show the usual edge of madness that Jommy had seen in other confrontations. These men knew they were going to die.
Jommy made his way back until he was next to Kaspar. ‘General, those men are going to let us kill them.’
The former Duke of Olasko nodded. ‘They have that look, don’t they?’ He turned and shouted, ‘I want prisoners!’ Then with an eye on the flaming monstrosity behind them, he quietly added, ‘Should any of us survive.’
The creature had wandered aimlessly lashing out at anything it could, but now it seemed to have turned its attention to the hillside. Jommy said, ‘I think it’s seen us.’
‘I have no idea if the thing even has eyes,’ said Kaspar, ‘but we’d better get this under control, because it’s definitely coming this way.’
The first half a dozen raiders to reach the defenders threw themselves forward with manic ferocity. Several of Kaspar’s men were wounded, but every attacker was cut down. Jommy waited, but no one approached him directly. He saw there were a dozen corpses on the ground just below where he waited, and farther down the hillside a knot of perhaps two dozen men watched. One of them said something and others nodded, then they broke forward, and now Jommy could hear shouts and cries. He did not recognize the language, but the intent was clear: they meant to kill as many of Kaspar’s men as they could before dying in their turn.
Jommy saw one of the raiders turn, run down the hill and taunt the creature. How he had managed to do this, Jommy couldn’t imagine, but it mattered little because the man had attracted the monster’s attention. He slowly led the fiendish being up the hill and then waited. Jommy’s eyes widened in astonishment as he saw the raider put down his sword and let the creature crush him as a man would an insect. The man’s scream was short and high-pitched and came to an abrupt halt. His body had exploded into flames a second before the creature’s fiery hand had touched him: even at this distance, those on the hillside could feel the heat.
A second man raced down, halfway between the monster and Kaspar’s position just as the attackers reached the defensive position. But this time instead of a furious assault, the tempo was more that of a probing attack, something Jommy had come to understand was what soldiers did at times when they were trying to gauge the enemy’s strength.
Suddenly he understood. ‘General!’ Jommy shouted.
‘Yes?’ replied Kaspar as he easily slapped aside a half-hearted thrust from a raider who had got between two soldiers. The General slashed with his blade and the raider fell dead, his throat fountaining crimson.
‘They’re bringing that thing up to us! They’re dying in order to bring it here!’ Jommy said.
‘Idiots,’ said Servan, but he looked distinctly nervous.
Jommy was forced to admit their tactic was effective, if you didn’t mind dying to make it work. A third raider had now given himself up to the creature, and the ferocity of the heat was almost unbearable.
As if recognizing the hopelessness of their position, a handful of the enemy feigned attacks and purposefully left themselves open for killing blows.
‘Prisoners!’ shouted Kaspar. ‘Keep one of them alive!’
Jommy couldn’t stand his ground; everyone started to retreat before the forge-like heat of the monster. At the same time the raiders advanced and Jommy was forced to fight while backing up a steep hillside. The footing was wet and treacherous. Jommy killed one man only to almost die as another man shoved his companion into Jommy’s blade. Only a quick blow over Jommy’s shoulder by another soldier gave him the seconds he needed to pull his blade free.
Jommy almost lost his balance as his heel caught on a rock, and he barely avoided an enemy’s sword thrust. He lashed out wildly and even though his opponent was willing to die, he pulled back out of reflex. When he sprang again Jommy was ready and the man died silently.
A desperate struggle ensued as men wishing to live tried to give way to men willing to die. Jommy felt the tempo of the conflict change and he recognized a difference in the battle around him: panic was imminent. The men of Kaspar’s company were becoming desperate as they attempted a nearly impossible organized withdrawal, and the attackers were becoming frantic as they sought to keep from being captured while leading the monstrosity to their foes.
As they struggled to retreat up the hillside, a loud thrumming filled the air.
The creature was abruptly bathed in light as a shaft of white brilliance shot down from the clouds. It became transfixed, unable to move, and several men took wounds because they had stopped fighting in order to watch it.
Jommy killed a man in front of him, and glanced over the dying raider’s shoulder. The enemy appeared to have sensed that the day had been lost, and they began to back away.
Abruptly both sides disengaged. Jommy shouted, ‘General?’
‘Wait,’ came the order and Jommy did so. He watched the creature below as the raiders moved towards it, never taking their eyes off Kaspar’s men. The rain now appeared to be cooling it off, as if the creature’s mystic fire had lost its power. The sizzling sound of steam exploding off its surface diminished and its colour faded from a brilliant hot yellow back to the red-and-black appearance of molten rock. Jommy looked over his shoulder at Kaspar, and saw another figure high on a rock behind him. ‘Look, General,’ he said, pointing.
A being dressed in buckskin leather, with long flowing golden hair, stood holding a staff above his head. He appeared to be chanting. It was obvious to Jommy and Kaspar this was the author of the mystic light.
With a shudder, the creature dissolved like hot rocks falling apart. Great clouds of smoke filled the air.
‘Prisoners!’ shouted Kaspar: too late. The raiders, seeing no escape, wordlessly turned their swords on one another.
Jommy had seen enough men die in fights to know killing blows when he saw them. He turned to Kaspar and shook his head. The General’s expression was a mixture of disgust at losing his prisoners and open relief at the intervention of the newcomer, who was obviously a magician. With a sigh, he said, ‘Must be one of Pug’s, come to look out for us. Good thing, too—’
Jommy shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, General.’
Captain Stefan and Servan both came to stand by their commander as the figure on the rock put his staff down. ‘It’s an elf,’ said Servan. ‘As I live—’
Kaspar said, ‘I think you’re right, Lieutenant.’
The elf said something, a question from the tone of it.
‘I speak more than a dozen tongues and I don’t recognize it,’ said Kaspar.
The elf walked slowly down from his position above them, then halted half a dozen paces above Kaspar and studied them for a moment. ‘I said, who are you to be trespassing on the Peaks of the Quor?’ He spoke the tongue of Kesh, but with an odd accent and cadence.
‘I’m Kaspar, former Duke of Olasko and commander of this company. As for trespassing, I’m here with the permission of the King of Roldem and the Emperor of Great Kesh, both of whom claim this region.’
The elf’s features showed no emotion, then after a second resolved into an expression of dark humour. ‘Your masters’ vanities do not concern me. This land belongs to the Quor.’
Trying to remain civil, Kaspar said, ‘I want to thank you—’
‘Before you thank me for anything, human, realize I did not save you from the elemental creature. It was a thing of magic so foul I needed to dispose of it before I deal with you.’
‘Deal with us?’ said Kaspar.
‘Yes,’ said the elf. ‘You are all my prisoners.’
Instantly, men took combative stances, for while there was only one elf, they had just seen him vanquish the monster with seemingly no effort. Kaspar said, ‘And do you, alone, intend to capture all of us?’ There were still thirty combat-ready soldiers behind him.
‘No,’ said the elf and then he raised his voice and said something in the other language.
As if by magic elves appeared from behind rocks and trees, at least twice as many as Kaspar’s band. The one thing that stood out most about them was their appearance: all were blond, had sun-browned skin, and the same sky blue eyes as the magician. And all of them wore the same buckskin so that it was almost a uniform, save for a slightly different cut to a tunic or fringe on the sleeves. Some elves had feathers or polished stones woven into their braids or a warrior’s knot, and many wore their hair down, long past the shoulders. Most carried bows, with arrows pointed at them, and another half a dozen carried staves. Kaspar was certain they were magic-users like the elf before them. After a moment he said, ‘Throw down your weapons.’ Reluctantly the men obeyed, and Kaspar said to the elf, ‘We surrender.’
The elf nodded. ‘Gather your wounded who can travel, and come with us.’
It took a few minutes to find those able to move and render them aid so they could travel. A dozen men were too injured to move and the elf said, ‘Leave them. They will be attended to.’
Kaspar nodded and when his men were ready, elves began escorting them up the hillside, along the same trail that led down from the cave Kaspar had used as his base of operations. As they reached a point where the elf had first revealed himself, a strangled cry from behind them caused Jommy to flinch. As he started to turn, he felt a strong hand grip his arm. Jim Dasher said, ‘Don’t look. It’s better not to.’
Jommy nodded. The men too injured to move were being killed quickly by the elves, and although Jommy knew it was probably kinder than letting a man die slowly from a gut wound or exposure, he still hated the thought of it.
Slowly the captives wended their way up the hillside high into the mountains above.
