to vanish for a moment, presenting an impossible target. Kaspar knew these creatures would be hard to hit with a sword, harder still with an arrow.
The elven warriors kept their swords at the ready but Kaspar already knew any contact between a steel blade and the flitting creatures was likely to be purely accidental. The only thing that gave Kaspar hope was that the creatures looked delicate, almost insubstantial, and he couldn’t imagine any of them surviving a sword’s blow. But how to hit them, that was the question.
Yet the flourishing of swords seemed to cause the apparitions to hesitate. Kaspar heard the voice of Jim Dasher, from a short distance away, shouting, ‘Those things don’t want to touch steel! Belt buckles!’
The soldiers quickly pulled loose their belts, rolling on the ground like demented rag dolls, trying to keep low while trying to free their only weapon. Some came to their knees, or into a crouch, their belts folded ready to be swung, while others wrapped the belts around their fist, buckle on top, like a hand weapon.
The swooping flyers veered off rather than be touched, but Kaspar was an experienced enough hunter to understand they were only testing their prey. ‘Keep low!’ he shouted. ‘They’re coming in … now!’
As if they had obeyed his command the flying creatures veered in, diving straight down at those on the trail. The elves were ready, obviously practised in dealing with these creatures, while the humans were trained fighting men, hand-picked by the Conclave for their resolve as well as their other abilities.
Kaspar spared a glance to either side and saw Jommy to his right and Servan to his left with Jim Dasher now standing slightly behind Servan’s left, each man now with at least one flank covered, and then he saw black horror flying straight at him.
At the last instant Kaspar could see that the creatures had tiny eyes that looked like shimmering blue gems flecked with gold. A maw like a dagger cut opened for a second showing tiny razor-sharp teeth of brilliant carmine red.
Kaspar lashed out as hard as he could, his belt-buckle squarely striking the Void-darter under its ‘chin’. He felt the shock of contact run through his hands and arms as if he had just struck an oak with his sword. The creature flew backwards, tumbling, losing its ability to fly. It struck the ground and with a flash of a metallic, grey-blue light vanished, leaving behind only an oily black smoke.
Jommy lashed out as well, striking his attacking creature slightly off-centre, sending it veering away to his right. Servan ducked and Jim Dasher lashed out with a fist wrapped with his belt-buckle on top. He grunted with pain as the shock ran straight up his arm.
In all three cases the response was the same; the creatures fled with a ghostly wail of pain.
Kaspar again stole a glance around and saw that most of his men were unhurt. The two exceptions were on the ground, contorted as if in agony. One had a creature attached to his left leg and evil blue wisps of smoke rose from where it touched him. The other had been struck in the chest. He arched his back so severely Kaspar wondered if he’d break his own spine.
An elf slashed at the first man’s leg, the point of his sword arcing across the creature’s back. A tiny blue flame erupted and Kaspar for the first time saw that the elves’ swords were not made of steel, but something he had never seen before. The creature released its hold on the thrashing man. The second man was not as lucky: the elf who came to stand over him drove his sword point through the attached Void-darter, straight into the prisoner. Both died instantly.
Kaspar ducked as another flyer attempted to wrap itself around his head, and as the creature grazed his scalp he felt a painful, icy tingle as if something was sucking the heat from his skin. Ice burn, he thought, remembering as a child what it was like to be hunting in the mountains with his father, and touching a dagger’s blade that had grown so cold it peeled a layer of skin off as his father pulled it from his hand.
Abruptly, a huge enveloping energy surrounded the column, as the elven spell-casters responded. The Void-darters turned and fled and the leader of the elves shouted, ‘Run! They will come back with their masters!’
Ignoring the dead man on the road, Kaspar yelled, ‘Grab the wounded and carry them!’ He picked up the man who had been struck in the leg, found him almost icy to the touch, and hoisted him across his shoulders, carrying him as he would an elk he had killed in the hunt. The man groaned weakly, but Kaspar had no intention of leaving anyone behind if he could help it. Even at the height of his madness, when under the influence of the evil magician Leso Varen, Kaspar had held to certain principles that had inspired personal loyalty of his men, and one was fundamental: on the battlefield every soldier was his brother – no living man was willingly left behind. Kaspar admitted that he might have been a murderous bastard at one time, but he was a loyal murderous bastard.
Kaspar kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, and after running for twenty yards could see a wooden palisade ahead through a gap in the trees. The glimpse was enough to tell him that it was a fairly substantial fortification, with the battlement a good twenty feet above the foundation. The soldier in him quickly calculated the difficulty of taking such a position, uphill, while a punishing rain of arrows fell on you as you moved up to the base of the wall … nothing a skilled company of engineers supported by disciplined soldiers couldn’t quickly deal with, but he suspected there was more to the fortification than met the eye. Even so, a couple of turtles with sappers inside could probably dig up the foundation of two or three pales in the wall within an hour. He glanced at the road as he ran and thought that a good-sized covered ram with supporting archers could probably breach the gate in half the time. Unless magic was involved …
On top of this hill, snug against a cliff face some hundred yards or more behind, stood a series of wooden buildings fashioned in a manner Kaspar had never seen before, and all of them were surrounded by the massive wooden wall.
As they approached, Kaspar appreciated how hundreds of trees must have been cleared to form an open killing ground. An earthen redoubt had been erected in front of the palisade. The road now fell away on both sides in a manner that would funnel attackers in front of the gate into a more confined area or have them falling off to one side or the other so that they’d end up standing below the wall, in peril of murderous bowfire from above.
To his right Kaspar could see that years of fighting had despoiled these grounds. There was something odd about it, he thought as he struggled to get his wounded soldier to safety, but he couldn’t quite put a name to it. There was something different about this battlefield, something sensed more than seen.
A howling erupted behind the fleeing men and Kaspar turned around completely, to see what pursued them.
Void-darters sped in from behind, but in close pursuit came beings that could only be described as demons out of some deep pit of hell. Cloaked in tatters of charcoal, inky black beings sat astride creatures that seemed to be the demented product of a fevered delirium.
The animals looked like elongated wolves, but had an almost feline motion. Like the flying entities, they were things made of shadow and darkness, but these creatures had pale milky white eyes.
The riders were roughly humanoid in shape, but their forms flowed around the edges, and from them a fog or smoke trailed behind them leaving grey wisps that were almost instantly lost in the evening’s gloom. They howled and Kaspar saw weapons in their hands, long blades that shimmered and sparked with angry energies of the darkest red hue.
‘Ban-ath protect me!’ said Jim Dasher as he edged close to Kaspar.
‘Run!’ shouted Kaspar, for some of the men had stopped in muted horror.
Men broke in ragged formation, the elves now ignoring their role as captors, everyone trying for the safety of the walls. Kaspar expected to see archers ready to cover the retreat, but instead was greeted only by the sight of a few faces above the ramparts and none of them apparently in possession of a bow.
Burdened by the man he carried, Kaspar struggled towards the keep, again finding that will which had made him a dangerous foe before becoming a valued ally to the Conclave of Shadows. ‘Where are your archers?’ he shouted.
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