«Jakatakan,» he said. tlites. They'd been cut to pieces.
He turned his attention to the remaining bodies and felt a tremor of fear run through him. No wonder the Jakatakan had taken such a beating. Toc strode to one of the bodies and crouched beside it. He knew something of the clan markings among the Barghast, how each hunter group was identified through their woad tattooing. The breath hissed between his teeth and he reached out to turn the savage's face towards him, then he nodded. These were Ilgres Clan. Before the Crimson Guard had enlisted them, their home territory had been fifteen hundred leagues to the east, among the mountains just south of the Porule. Slowly Toc rose. The Ilgres numbered among the strongest of those who had joined the Crimson Guard at Blackdog Forest, but, that was four hundred leagues north. So what had brought them here?
The stench of spilled magic wafted across his face and he turned, his eye fixing on a body he hadn't noticed before. It lay beside scorched grass. «So,» he said, «my question's answered.» This band had been led by a Barghast shaman. Somehow, they'd stumbled on to a trail and this shaman had recognized it for what it was. Toc studied the shaman's body. Killed by a sword wound in the throat. The unleashing of sorcery had been the shaman's, but no magic had opposed him. And that was odd, particularly since it was the shaman who had died, rather than whomever he'd attacked.
Toc grunted. «Well, she's said to be hell on mages.» He walked a slow circle around the kill site, and found the trail with little difficulty. Some of the Jakatakan had survived, and from the smaller set of boot-prints, so had their charge. And overlaying these tracks were half a dozen moccasin prints. The trail veered westerly from the trader's track, yet still led south.
Returning to his horse, Toc mounted and swung the animal around.
He removed the short bow from its saddle holster and strung it, then nocked an arrow. There was no hope of coming up on the Barghast undetected. Out on this plain he'd be visible a long time before entering arrow-range-and that range had become much closer now that he'd lost an eye. So they'd be waiting for him, with those damn lances. But he knew he had no choice; he hoped only to take down one or two of them before they skewered him.
Toc spat again, then wrapped the reins around his left forearm and adjusted his grip on the bow. He gave the wide red scar crossing his face a vigorous, painful scratch, realizing that the maddening itch would return in moments anyway. «Oh well,» he said, then drove his heels into the horse's flanks.
The lone hill that rose up before Adjunct Lorn was not a natural one. The tops of mostly buried stones encircled its base. She wondered what might be entombed within it, then dismissed her misgivings. If those standing stones were of the size she'd seen rising around the mysterious barrows outside Genabaris, this mound dated back millennia. She turned to the two exhausted marines stumbling in her wake. «We'll make our stand here. You with the crossbow, I want you lying up top.»
The man ducked his head in answer and staggered to the mound's grassy summit. Both he and his comrade seemed almost relieved,tha she'd called a halt, though they knew their death was but minutes away.
Lorn eyed the other soldier. He'd taken a lance barb in his left shoulder and the blood still flowed profusely down the front of his breastplate. How he had stayed on his feet in the last hour was beyond Lorn's understanding. He looked upon her with eyes dulled by resignation, showing nothing of the pain he must be feeling.
«I'll hold your left,» he said, shifting his grip on the curved tulwar in his right hand.
Lorn unsheathed her own longsword and fixed her attention northwards. Only four of the six Barghast were visible, approaching slowly.
«We're being flanked,» she called out to her crossbowman. «Take the one on your left.»
The soldier beside her grunted. «My life need not be sheltered,» he said.
«We were charged with your protection, Adjunct-»
«Quiet,» Lorn commanded. «The longer you stand the better protected I'll be,» she said.
The soldier grunted again.
The four Barghast were lingering now, just out of bowshot range. Two still carried their lances; the other two gripped short axes. Then a voice cried out far to Lorn's right and she whirled to see a lance speeding towards her, and behind it a charging Barghast.
Lorn brought her blade across her body and dropped into a crouch as she raised the weapon over her head. Her sword caught the lance's shaft and even as it did so she was turning, pulling her weapon to one side.
The deflected lance sped past and cracked into the hillside off to her right.
Behind her she heard the crossbowman release a quarrel. As she spun back to the four charging Barghast there came a scream of pain from the other side of the mound. The soldier beside her seemed to have forgotten his wound, as he gripped his tulwar with both hands and planted his feet wide.
«Attend, Adjunct,» he said.
The Barghast off to the right cried out and she turned to see him spinning with the impact of a quarrel.
The four warriors before them were no more than thirty feet away.
The two with lances now launched them. Lorn made no move, realizing almost immediately that the one aimed at her would fly wide. The soldier beside her dropped away to his left, but not enough to avoid the lance as it thudded into his right thigh. It struck with such force as to drive right through his leg and embed itself in the earth. The soldier was pinned, but his only response was a soft gasp, and he raised his sword to parry an axe swinging at his head.
In this time Lorn had already closed with the Barghast rushing at her.
His axe was a shorter weapon, and she took advantage of this with a thrust before he came into his own range. He brought the coppersheathed haft up to parry, but Lorn had already flicked her wrist, completing the feint and dipping under the axe. Her lunge buried the sword point in the Barghast's chest, slicing the leather armour as if were cloth.
Her attack had committed her, and her sword was nearly wrenched from her hand as the savage toppled backwards. Off-balance, she staggered a step, expecting the crushing blow of an axe. But it didn't, arrive. Regaining her balance she spun round, to find her crossbowman now wielding his tulwar, engaging the other Barghast. Lorn snapped her attention to see how her other guard fared.
Somehow, he still lived, though he faced two Barghast. He'd managed to drag the lance out of the earth, but the weapon's shaft remained in his leg. That he was able to move at all, much less defend himself, spoke eloquently of Jakatakan discipline and training.
Lorn rushed to engage the Barghast on the man's right, nearest her. Even as she did so, an axe slipped past the soldier's guard and struck him across the chest. Scale snapped as the heavy weapon's edge ripped through armour. The soldier groaned and fell to one knee, blood sprurting on to the ground.
Lorn was in no position to defend him and could only watch in horror as the axe swung again, this time striking the man in the head. His helmet collapsed inward and his neck broke. He toppled sideways, laying at Lorn's feet. Her forward momentum carried her right over him.
A curse broke from her lips as she sprawled, crashing into the Bargh in front of her. She tried to bring the point of her sword up behind but he twisted lithely to one side and leaped away. Lorn took a swing at him, missing, even as she fell. She felt her shoulder dislocate as she hit the hard ground, and the sword dropped from her numbed hand. Now, she thought, the only thing left to do is die. She rolled on to back.
With a growl the Barghast was standing beside her, axe raised high. Lorn was in a good position to see the skeletal hand bursting from earth beneath the Barghast. It grasped an ankle. Bones snapped, the warrior screamed. Vaguely, as she watched, she wondered where the other two savages had gone. All sounds of fighting seemed to be stopped, but the ground rumbled with a growing, urgent thunder.