The urgrosh split hide and flesh and cracked the skull beneath. But it wasn’t enough to kill the lizard-bear. It turned and sprang at him, and he dodged and chopped at it again.
It still wouldn’t go down, and then the ground crumbled beneath his feet. As he plunged down into the powder, he realized that the adept had played the same trick on him that he’d used on Medrash and Balasar. He also realized he couldn’t defend himself while half drowning in the dry, hot quagmire. All the lizard thing had to do was lean down and nip his head off.
It started to. Then Medrash rushed in on its flank and cut its neck. His luminous blade bit deep, and the beast collapsed.
Then Medrash stuck his sword in the ground. He had to grab Balasar to heave Khouryn out of the ash, because Medrash’s off hand was useless. A different lizard thing had torn away his shield and shredded the arm that supported it. The wounds fumed and made a sickening sizzling sound as acid continued to eat its way into his flesh.
“Heal yourself!” Khouryn said.
Medrash swayed. “The others…”
“You can’t help anybody if you pass out!”
“You’re right.” Medrash pressed his good hand to the injuries and recited a prayer. Light shone between his fingers.
Meanwhile, Khouryn surveyed the battlefield, then cursed. The advent of the lizard creatures had shifted the balance of power disastrously. He and the dragonborn likely could have handled either them or the ash giants, but not both together. Half the Daardendrien warriors had fallen already, and the rest were hard pressed.
“We have to make a run for it,” he said.
Medrash gave a curt nod, and then he bellowed, “Retreat!”
Retreating was particularly difficult for him and Khouryn with most of the enemy between them and where they wanted to go. But, miraculously still unscathed, Balasar came to fight alongside them, and that helped. Together they killed one lizard-bear, lamed another, and scrambled away faster than it could follow. The adept filled the air around them with embers, but the sparks only singed them a little before they sprinted clear. Maybe Medrash’s circle of runes protected them.
Then Khouryn felt the slant of the ground beneath his feet. He and his friends had reached the slope, anyway.
Eventually, they reached the top too, and at that point Medrash stopped running and glared back at the pursuing giants and lizard things. Balasar and Khouryn stopped to stand to either side of him.
The paladin shouted, “I’m right here! Kill me if you can!” Khouryn could tell the declaration carried a charge of divine power. Even though he wasn’t the target, the words echoed inside his head. They certainly set hooks in several of the enemy, who left off chasing other dragonborn to veer toward Medrash. And his two companions.
“Now how is this a good thing?” Balasar asked. Then an ash giant pounded up to him, and he caught the first chop of a stone axe on his shield.
He probably riposted too, but Khouryn didn’t see it. He had to turn and contend with a giant of his own.
The next few moments were a frenzy of bashing, hacking giant weapons and the blades that leaped and darted in reply. Chanting a prayer, Medrash began to shine like his sword. Lacking any comparable mystical resources of his own, Khouryn simply kept in constant motion and used every skill and trick he’d mastered in training yards and battles across the East.
Somehow it kept him alive until Balasar yelled, “Everyone’s gone past us!”
Medrash thrust the point of his sword into the ground. “Torm!” he bellowed. Brighter light flared from the weapon. Khouryn didn’t feel a thing as it washed over him, but it slammed giants and lizard-bears reeling backward.
Which enabled the three defenders to break away. As they turned and ran, the glow in Medrash’s sword, the radiance shining from his body, and his ring of floating runes all winked out together. Which likely meant that for the moment, he’d exhausted his ability to channel his deity’s power.
Below them, one of the guards they’d left with the horses was still waiting, still holding a string of the animals ready. Balasar, who’d evidently noticed that it took a dwarf a bit of time to clamber up into the saddle, picked Khouryn up and dumped him there before springing onto his own mount.
Medrash swung himself onto his horse. The guard started to do the same. Then something cracked, and he collapsed, his head abruptly misshapen inside his dented helm. Blood gushed from under the rim. Khouryn realized one of the giants had thrown a stone with lethal force and aim.
The guard appeared beyond help, and the riders spurred their steeds and left him sprawled in the dirt. They had to. Because giants and lizard things were charging down the slope like a wave rushing at the shore.
For the next several heartbeats, Khouryn wondered if reaching the horses was actually going to be enough. It was possible that the giants with their long legs could run just as fast, or the lizard creatures for that matter. Or one of the rocks whizzing through the air could kill or lame a horse.
But he and his comrades gradually pulled ahead, and one by one the giants gave up the chase and shouted after them. Khouryn didn’t speak their language, but the mockery in their tone was unmistakable.
And maybe they deserved to feel superior. Because when Khouryn and his companions caught up with the dragonborn who’d ridden away before them-the warriors whose lives they’d bought with their seemingly suicidal rearguard action-they saw there were only three of them. That meant Clan Daardendrien had lost twenty-five of its finest.
Balasar looked around at what little was left of their war band, then made a spitting sound. “And we never even got to the scout on the bat!”
Hasos glared at Aoth. “A man is dead!” the noble said.
“I regret that,” Aoth replied. “But war really is coming. Threskel is moving more and more of its strength to the border. You’d better get used to the idea that before this is over, a lot of men will be dead.”
“The other farmers are afraid to work the fields.”
“All the more reason to help me stop the raiders in their own territory before they slip into yours and hurt people.”
Hasos’s mouth twisted. “We’ve been though this, Captain. I won’t provoke the Threskelans into attacking any more aggressively than they are already. I won’t risk men I may need later.”
Aoth studied Hasos. Please, he thought, show me a sign that this whoreson sent the killers after me. Do it and I’ll arrest him, take sole command of all the soldiers hereabouts, and worry about justifying my actions to the war hero later.
But the scene before him didn’t change. He could depend on his fire-kissed eyes to see through darkness or mirages, but providing some intimation of a man’s secret thoughts was a more difficult trick.
Of course, it was entirely possible he was staring at the wrong man anyway. He wanted Hasos to be guilty. It would make life simpler, and he didn’t like the aristocrat any better than Hasos liked him. But that didn’t mean the Chessentan really was sheltering dragonborn assassins.
“All right,” said Aoth, “you keep your men patrolling your own lands, I’ll keep sending mine into Threskel, and maybe together we can keep any more peasants from catching arrows. Now, if we’ve talked about everything you wanted to discuss, I have something too.”
Hasos scowled like he wasn’t done witlessly trying to blame the plowman’s death on the sellswords’ incursions into enemy territory. But then he evidently decided to let it go. “What’s that?”
“I need to walk this keep from top to bottom.”
“Why?”
“Obviously, my lord, if the Threskelans lay siege to Soolabax and succeed in getting inside the walls, your residence will become crucial to our defense. So I need to be familiar with it. I should have looked it over before this, but I had even more urgent things to do.”
“I suppose I can have someone show you around. Or do it myself, if you think that would be better.”