spells. I groped for my flesh sorcery, trying to focus enough to shut out the pain
so I could try to escape.
A silver knife opened the shaman’s throat, sending a spray of bright red
blood arcing over me. A lithe form vaulted the rock he’d been standing on, and
slid down my shield to land next to me.
“Daniel!” Cerise gasped. “Shit, you’re fucked up. What can I do?”
“Keep… off me…” I gasped. It was hard to breath, and my voice
wasn’t working right.
More goblins were coming into view now. One loosed an arrow at her,
but she sidestepped it neatly. “You got it. Fading light, flee from my presence!
Devouring night, make my shadow your home!”
The dim light of twilight suddenly faded to pitch darkness. I heard the
frantic jabbering of goblins, and more arrows whistled through the air. Then a
goblin shrieked in pain.
“I can keep them busy for a few minutes,” Cerise’s voice whispered in
my ear. “But the shamans will tear down my shadows pretty quick and then I’m
fucked. So work fast.”
“’kay.”
I gathered my focus again, and managed to get a pain block in place.
With that done I was able to levitate myself without passing out from the pain,
and get all my body parts arranged more or less the way they were supposed to
be. Damn, that was a bad landing.
Priorities.
I had broken ribs, and one of them punctured a lung. That was why I
couldn’t breathe right. Okay, push the ribs back into place, clear my lung and
stop the bleeding. No time for anything more. Why couldn’t I feel my legs?
My spine was severed down near my waist. Damn. I needed mobility,
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and I levitating myself took too much concentration. I couldn’t fight and move
at the same time that way. Alright, I’d have to try to fix it.
Cerise yelped in pain, and the impenetrable blackness around me faded
to something more like a moonless night. Now I could make out vague outlines
moving around me, and an occasional flash of magic.
Was that a faint tingling in my toes, or just my imagination? Damn it,
this was taking too long!
Sounds of combat were springing up all around me now. Screams and
shouts and the ringing of steel against steel. A wolf howled nearby, and the
bellowing roar of a troll echoed it. An impact glanced off my shield, which
still wasn’t back to full strength. Why not?
Oh. Maybe putting defense and healing on the same item wasn’t such a
smart idea. The amulet was mindlessly dumping almost all of its energy into
the healing spell, trying to fix everything that was wrong with me and leaving
only a tiny trickle to recharge the shield. I’d have to change that later, assuming
I was still alive.
Finally, sensation returned to my legs. My broken bones weren’t really
healed, but they were set firmly enough that I could move without causing more
damage. That would have to do for now. I set myself down, and stood on
wobbly legs.
“Done!” I announced. “Let’s get out of here.”
Three arrows hit my shield immediately. They didn’t penetrate, but the
barrier wavered ominously. Damn it, where was Cerise? I couldn’t throw any
ranged attacks or I might hit her.
“Turn left and walk a little,” Cerise said from behind me. “I’ve got
your back.”
“Got it.” I turned, and hobbled forward through the darkness.
A large shape loomed in front of me. I extended an eight-foot force
blade from my left hand and swept it across the shadowy bulk. It collapsed
with an agonized animal sound, and I stepped around it.
Another dark shape, but this one was just a wall. Heavy stone, thicker
than I was tall. Right, the town wall. This must be one end of the breach.
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“Can’t hold the darkness much longer,” Cerise warned.
I nodded, and put my back to the wall. With my amulet’s energy flow
mostly tied up I couldn’t afford to waste magic on anything big, but shifting
some of the broken stone beneath our feat to give us cover wasn’t too hard.
“Alright, let it go,” I said.
The darkness faded to twilight. Cerise stood beside me, breathing
heavily from the fight, with a nasty gash on one arm and bloodstains all over
her knee-length dress.
In front of us the breach was full of monsters. Hundreds of goblins,
about half of them on wolfback, were pouring into the town. Here and there a
troll strode through the rushing crowd of smaller monsters, roaring and looking
for enemies. A handful of archers on the wall above rained arrows down into
the mass, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
I threw a volley of force blades into the press, and a whole group of
goblins fell in a spray of blood and severed body parts. But they could see us
now, and the nearest goblins immediately rushed us.
I manifested an eight-foot blade of force from my left hand and swept it
across their ranks. Goblins and wolves fell, cut in half by the invisible blade.
But there were too many of them, moving too fast.
A javelin bounced off my shield. I swept my blade back and forth,
cutting down more attackers. A goblin leaped off his dying mount with swords
like meat cleavers in both hands, but Cerise knocked him out of the air with a
curse. Arrows fell around us, and a ball of sparks arced over our attackers to
detonate on my shield.
It collapsed.
A troll lumbered into range, raising a broken-off tree trunk high over its
head. I stabbed it in the groin with my force blade, and it dropped the
improvised club to clutch at itself. More goblins poured around it into melee
range, stabbing at me with spears. Cerise gutted one that got too close, and I
cut down more with another sweep of my hand.
There were too many of them. I turned the ground in front of us to mud
to buy us a moment’s respite, and grabbed Cerise.
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“Hold on!” I told her, and threw us both into the air.
My previous experiment in flying hadn’t worked out so well, but this
time I wasn’t going any further than the top of the wall. Cerise gasped in
surprise as we left the ground, then whooped and clutched at me.
“We’re flying!” She yelled.
“More like falling in the wrong direction,” I corrected. A second push
up, a wobble to keep us from hitting the wall, and then we were above the
level of the parapet. I glanced down to see startled guardsmen looking up at us.
Down in the breach two more trolls were headed for the spot where
we’d been fighting, and the first one was getting back up. Yeah, that would
have ended badly.
I managed an awkward landing on top of the wall, and put Cerise
down. She leaned against me in a way that would have been a lot more
appealing if not for my broken ribs, and kissed me.
“We’ve got to do that again,” she said excitedly. “Only next time try not
to crash in the middle of a horde of monsters.”
“Good advice,” I said dryly. “Watch the ribs. I take it you were out in
the town?”
She nodded, and gave me a suddenly worried look. “Are you going to
be alright? You looked really bad, but I figured it would be like the fight with
the giant.”
“It will be, but I can’t afford to spend an hour healing right now.
Thanks for the save, by the way. I don’t think I would have made it out of there
on my own.”
“I still owe you two more,” she grinned. “So, how do we save the