As once again he fled before it, he struggled not to give way to outright panic and despair. There had to be a way to stop it. Once Nicos had resigned himself to the fact that his son meant to follow in his footsteps, he'd taught him that if only a thief kept his head, he could think his way around any danger.
And so, dodging, panting, gasping for breath, his heart pounding, Aeron strained to think, and eventually something struck him. Two Red Axes were dead. The orc and gnoll were fighting Miri.
Where is the fifth one, Aeron thought, the heavyset man with the boil? Why isn't he battling alongside his comrades and the mantis?
Once Aeron looked, it was easy enough to spot the fellow, even though he was standing well back from the action. The ruffian was simply gazing fixedly at his quarry's struggle with the metal insect… because he was controlling the contraption with his mind? Aeron had spent enough time with Dal and Burgell to know it was possible.
It was a long dagger cast to the Red Axe, but he doubted the mantis would let him get much closer. He dodged its next attack and snatched out a throwing knife. The brass insect pivoted, cutting off Aeron's view of his target, so he sprinted to bring the man with the boil back into sight.
Thanks to the delay, the Red Axe had plainly spotted the new weapon, for he stood poised to duck or dodge. Aeron cocked his arm and flicked his wrist, faking a cast to make Kesk's henchman move. The bravo jumped to the left, and Aeron truly threw the blade, leading the target slightly. The man with the boil was committed to his useless evasive action. He couldn't arrest or change it, and the flat, leaf-shaped Arthyn fang plunged into his chest right up to the handle.
Aeron sensed motion above him. He looked up at a pair of grasping claws and jumped back just in time to avoid them. Pincers clashing and gnashing, the mantis lunged after him, and sick with terror and hopelessness, Aeron thought he'd guessed wrong. It didn't matter that he'd killed the outlaw with the blemish. The apparatus would keep attacking on its own.
Then, however, he saw that it was hesitating between advances and attacks-slowing down-until, after a few more seconds, it froze into immobility with a final metallic groan.
Aeron would have liked nothing better than to stand still and catch his breath, but when he glanced around, he saw that Miri's plight was as difficult as before. Accordingly, he transferred the big Arthyn fang back into his primary hand and charged across the yard. He bellowed to draw the attention of the orc and gnoll. Or rather, he tried. The sound came out as more of a bleat.
Still, it worked. The Red Axes faltered in their attack and glanced around. Miri tried to take advantage of the opportunity that afforded her. She lunged, her arm straight, the broadsword extended to pierce the towering gnoll's guts. She almost scored, too, but the canine-headed creature must have glimpsed the motion from the corner of its eye. It wrenched itself back around just in time to parry with the sturdy brass-headed cane in its off hand, then it chopped at her head with a falchion. She turned the stroke with her steel buckler. Metal rang.
Foam flying from its muzzle, the gnoll snarled something in its own yipping language. Aeron couldn't understand it, but the orc must have, because it immediately turned to face him. The sheen of its warty flesh made his eyes ache and his stomach queasy. It reminded him of the way he felt on those rare occasions when he drank enough to make the world spin around.
The orc feinted a cudgel jab at his face, and when he lifted his arm to block, it swung its scimitar at his leg. Evidently it trusted that it could cripple him without killing him outright Caught by surprise, Aeron still managed to recoil in time. Then, before the Red Axe could come back on guard, he sprang in close and thrust the Arthyn fang at its ribs.
The blade screeched and glanced away, tearing the orc's tunic and shirt, but not the skin underneath. The Red Axe threw its arms around him and clasped him in a bear hug, meanwhile gouging at his throat and face with the tusks jutting upward from its lower jaw. For some reason, it trusted that wouldn't kill him, either, or else in its excitement, it had forgotten the object was to take him alive.
Whatever it had in mind, Aeron was sure he had only seconds to break free before it blinded him or flensed the flesh off his skull. He wrestled frantically, holding its boar-like teeth away, trying to loosen its grip, grimly certain that most of the tricks he might ordinarily have tried in such a predicament-a head butt, biting, a knee to the groin-wouldn't deter the magically armored orc. It strained to fling him down beneath it onto the ground. Aeron could feel his balance going, and with a last frenzied effort, he tore himself away from it.
They both came back on guard at the same time. The orc whipped the club at his head. He ducked, stabbed the underside of its wrist, and failed to break the skin. As before, by committing to an attack, he'd merely opened himself up for the Red Axe's riposte. He had to snatch his foot back to keep the scimitar from chopping it in two.
Aeron groped for another idea. He wasn't confident of the one that came to him, but it was all he had. He ducked, dodged, parried, and gave ground while he waited for the chance to try it. He knew a few obscene taunts in the orc tongue, and gasped them out in hopes of further angering his adversary and so undermining the creature's judgment.
The Red Axe charged and swung the cudgel. Aeron lunged in close, avoiding the stroke in the process. He didn't bother to thrust out the knife in another futile attack. Instead, he dropped it to free up his hands. He shifted behind the orc and kicked it in the knee.
The assault likely would have lamed an ordinary foe. He was sure it hadn't hurt the Red Axe, but it did cost the creature its balance. The orc stumbled, and Aeron threw himself on its back and bore it to the ground.
Using his weight, Aeron fought to hold the orc down. He grabbed its neck and squeezed. It heaved and thrashed, trying to buck him off.
Once or twice, it nearly succeeded, but then its struggles grew weaker. As he'd hoped, though the potion's magic kept its flesh from being pierced or pulped, it couldn't stop Aeron from pressing its windpipe closed and cutting off its air.
Eventually the Red Axe stopped squirming. Aeron choked the orc for a few more seconds, just to be sure, then he let go. His hands ached.
"Are you all right?" Miri asked.
He turned. At some point in the last minute or so, she'd disposed of the gnoll, which lay on the ground behind her with a deep cut on the left side of its chest.
"Yes," Aeron replied, panting, "and from the looks of it, you are, too."
He rose and hurried to the fallen hobgoblin. Miri followed.
To Aeron's relief, the slave was still breathing, and though he was no healer, speaking to it and patting its hairy, big-nosed faced sufficed to restore it to consciousness.
"How are you?" Aeron asked.
The hobgoblin sat up and rubbed its head.
"I've had worse," it said. "My people are hard to kill."
"I reckon so," Aeron replied. He took out some gold and pressed it into the goblin-kin's hand. "Plainly, you have more grit than these others. Can you make sure they get to the Barony of the Great Oak before you strike out on your own?"
"I can if you get this crossbow bolt out of my shoulder."
"I'm no chirurgeon," Miri said, kneeling down beside it and drawing her knife, "but I've done this a time or two, when none was available. Let me."
It made Aeron wince to watch her cut the quarrel out. The hobgoblin, however, bore it stoically. Only its clenched jaw revealed how much it was hurting. Once Miri bandaged the puncture as best she could with strips of cloth, the former slave gave the two humans a nod, then hauled itself to its feet and appropriated the strangled orc's scimitar.