By reaching for a star. A shooting star.
With a jolt, Johan threw back his head and stared through amber glass at the cavern ceiling.
The clang of sword on sword rang throughout the cavern with an earsplitting clatter. Pirates and pinefolk defended a jumble of boulders as a makeshift fort while legionnaires swarmed from all sides. Hacking furiously, Adira Strongheart felt her belly grow cold as ice. Very bad, thought she. Her pirates were canny swordsmen who could board or brawl, but these legionnaires were diehard professionals, and she couldn't even lift her head to count their numbers. The only outcome was slaughter.
Heath and Taurion and a woodswoman tried in vain to kill a single swordsman who met all their thrusts and hacks and paid them back. Taurion was felled with a slashed arm and the woodswoman was clipped above the hip. Before Taurion could defend, the same sword whacked him alongside the neck, and he fell.
Behind Adira, Magfire jabbed at two soldiers while a forester and Murdoch ganged another and Jedit grappled still more.
"We don't have luck in caves!" With one broken arm, Sister Wilemina had to hang back and feebly jab with her bow. "The last time we ventured underground merfolk drowned Treetop and nearly ate us hoof and hide!"
Adira cast back and forth, trying to decide who needed aid, and spotted Simone the Siren, who suffered attacks from two men. Her cutlass flashed wildly just to fend the blades aside, never mind return a thrust. Trapped in the midst of a scrap with no way to help, Adira shouted for her lieutenant to watch her footing, for the floor was lumpy.
A fatal misstep. Simone ducked a thrust that was actually a feint. While she lurched off-balance, the assassin dipped his shoulder and lunged. Two feet of red-smeared steel jutted out Simone's back. Not wasting a motion, the killer twisted the blade and ripped in another direction. Adira screamed as Simone was gutted like a fish.
"Simone! No!" Too late, the pirate queen drove to kill. Furious, but keeping a clear head, she lashed straight and hard in an overhand arc that split a legionnaire's throat. Blood spouted in a crimson fountain that painted the ceiling. "Heath, help me reach Simone!"
Heath was busy. Lamed, he skittered between a legionnaire's legs, dumping him backward. Heath aimed his sword like a dagger and rammed steel in the man's belly. The part-elf twisted the blade as if to pry the man's soul from his bowels. It took Jedit Ojanen to clear the way by killing a half-dozen foes with bare, blood-soaked paws.
Combat rang like temple bells, yet Adira heard none of it. Scuttling on hands and knees, she dragged Simone to her bosom, soaking herself in blood. Even clamping both hands front and back couldn't stanch the grievous wound.
"Simone! Simone! Please, don't go! Not you! I couldn't bear it!"
Simone's face waxed gray. Her black curls hung limp as petals on a dying flower. Blood trickled from her mouth. Weakly she tried to focus.
"Di-ra? I can't-Scarzam's Dragon, it hurts."
"Potion!" Magfire scrambled over rocks to reach Adira. Dropping her bloody war club, she yanked at the wooden stopper sealed with beeswax in a stoneware crock. "Alabaster potion'll save anyone! Pour it down her-"
"Magfire!" Kyenou, the scout in deer hide and ermine tails, snagged her leader's arm. "Taurion's neck is split open!"
"Brother!" Cramped amid rocks and corpses, Magfire crabbed back around. Everyone shouted, calling, scrabbling, moving. She called to Kyenou, "Wind of the West, help us! Is he alive?"
"He's dying!" The cool-headed Kyenou was crying.
"Give it here!" Adira slapped at Magfire's sleeve, bloodying her silver fox mantle, groping down her arm in the dim light to grab the crock without spilling its precious contents. "Give me some potion! Simone dies too! Then you can dose Taurton."
"No!" Magfire hugged the potion to her chest. "It's only potent in one dose! It can't be shared!"
"Give it to me!" Still with Simone's head cradled in her lap, Adira Strongheart grabbed the war chief by the mantle, flipped her bodily over her dying comrade, and slammed a fist into her jaw twice.
Iron-handed from a lifetime of warfare, Magfire refused to surrender the bottle. Spittle made bloody froth on her battered lips, and fire blazed in her eyes. Her free hand shot at Adira's face, four fingers spread, and would have blinded the pirate queen if she hadn't ducked. Snagging Adira's chestnut locks, Magfire twisted and almost popped her foe's neck.
The forester hissed, "One of mine or one of yours is no choice, outlander!"
"By the Sea-King's Crook!" Grabbing Magfire's wrist to stall the wrenching of her hair, Adira groped wildly for her black sword. "I'll gut you and every one of your benighted woods rats."
"No!"
Adira jumped as a cold hand clutched hers. Simone dragged down her friend's fingers as if disciplining a child. Her beautiful dulcet voice, that once had caroled from the crow's nest and carried miles across the sea, was faint as a whisper through a winter cave.
"I'm too far gone… Tom up… Give it away. Oh, kiss me, Adira… It's dark."
"Simone! Oh, Simone!" Shaking off Magfire's slackening grip, Adira held her friend's dark head and sobbed and sobbed as killing raged around her.
Confusion reigned as Magfire jumped over living and dead to reach her fallen brother. Tilting back his lolling head, she poured the alabaster potion between her fingers into his mouth. So potent was the mana-charged fluid that a pale white glow washed over Taurion's skin. The gaping wound at his neck sealed from both ends as if pinched by invisible hands. Flesh knit into a nasty white scar wide as a finger. Within a minute the near-dead man flushed pink and healthy.
Opening his eyes, he gasped, "Why aren't I dead?"
"Because a strong heart breeds strong friends." Magfire couldn't explain to her confused sibling, for she broke down crying.
"Listen!" called Heath.
Orders barked in a foreign tongue. The nearest legionnaires dropped back in the haze.
New to combat, Jasmine croaked, "Did we win?"
"Reinforcements must've arrived," explained Murdoch. "They'll switch and come at us again with fresh troops."
In the odd lull, pirates and foresters saw only glimpses of the enemy through the pall of smoke and dust. Veterans checked their blades, straightened tackle, sipped water, awaited orders, and talked of small things to banish fear. For soon they would die.
Murdoch bobbed his looted black sword in the air. "I wish I had my shield. That's how we trained in Yerkoy's Royal Army, sword and shield together, attack and defend. This one-handed steel-slinging is for high-faluting mercenaries or fog-headed fools."
"You're a mercenary yourself," said Sister Wilemina. Even with one arm in a sling, she checked her bowstring for frays. "Thanks to me. I recommended Adira adopt you back in Palmyra. I wish I were there now."
"I wish I had my own arrows. Pheasant feathers don't compare to good goose quills." Heath bound up his bleeding knee, his bow and quiver near at hand. "I can sink a shaft in a crow's eye at a mile with my own handwork. These arrows are sticks glued with eiderdown. Still, it was kind of Magfire's people to give us them. I wish I'd thanked them all properly."
"I wish I knew a spell so frightening it would scare even me." Jasmine Boreal fidgeted with her antique bronze knife. "But without my oddments this far underground, who knows what works? May the Virgin, Mother, and Crone pity me. I wish I'd paid them more fealty."
"Wishes are regrets glimpsed in yesterday's mirror," quoted Heath obscurely. "One of you women rouse Adira, will you? Time speeds."