“You can’t handle that many if they break through,” protested Rose.
Penny straightened her back and let her anger show openly on her face. “Damnitt Rose! I don’t have time to argue. Elaine, stay with them. If you meet any more of the enemy hide them all,” commanded the Countess di’Cameron, before adding, “Rose will be able to open the door to my rooms… make sure she opens the door first. Do you understand?”
Rose stared at her without showing any emotion before nodding her acceptance, but Elaine’s face was tormented by unexplained sadness. A tear rolled down her cheek as she answered, “I’m so sorry,” before turning away to obey Penny’s command. With Lilly carrying Irene, and the other children close beside them, the three women hurried to the staircase and the hope of refuge.
“I’m not dead yet,” replied Penny without understanding the underlying reason for Elaine’s apology. “If I can’t manage them, I’ll try to draw them in the other direction,” she added, heading back toward the doorway blocked by Elaine’s magic.
Standing about ten feet from the invisible barrier, she couldn’t help but imagine what a ridiculous site she must have been for the four men standing on the other side. She wore no armor; that was still in her bedroom upstairs. Instead, she was clothed only in the upper portion of what had recently been a beautiful formal gown. The skirt had been ripped completely off, leaving her bare legs fully displayed. Her only consolation was, that she had worn soft leather soled slippers under her dress, rather than the awkward thick soled shoes that many women preferred, to give them the illusion of greater height.
One of the men drew back with his heavy mace and swung it against the magical barrier. The weapon bounced back, and the barrier held. Growling he began to swing again.
Meanwhile, Penny drove her own sword into the stone floor in front of her, to free her hands for a moment. Reaching across, she ripped the sleeve from her left arm, a task that would have been difficult but for her enhanced strength. Never taking her eyes from the doorway and the men pounding at it with their iron clubs, she used the torn sleeve to tie her long hair back. It had been elaborately coiffed not long ago, but her recent fight had caused it to fall loose.
Once she had finished, she pulled her sword from the floor and assumed a relaxed pose, waiting for her opponents. They had been battering the invisible wall for two or three minutes now, which led her to doubt her decision. If I’d known it would take them this long, I would have stayed with the others. She toyed with the idea of following them then, but she knew if she did, her enemy would see the direction she went. Better to kill them here, she decided. She closed her mind against the possibility that she might not survive.
Then the barrier vanished, and one of the intruders stumbled forward as his heavy weapon failed to meet the expected resistance. Penny was waiting for him. Despite her calm pose, her body was thrumming with adrenaline. As the brute’s body came through, her sword flicked out, faster than thought and neatly sliced through his throat, before whipping back and severing the tendons of his weapon arm near the wrist.
Blood sprayed from her enemy’s throat and arm, and a thrill ran down Penny’s spine, erasing the doubt that her previous near failure had left her with. Banishing all thought, Penny leapt forward, sidestepping the dying man and thrusting her sword at his comrade standing beside him. As she went, she noted the quick reactions of the two others standing further back, both had their weapons up and whistling through the air almost as quickly as she had advanced, whipping the heavy iron maces through the air, as though they were as light as willow switches. One came in high while the other would strike her at the waist, either would likely kill or maim her with a single blow.
Ordinarily she would have dodged backward, turning her thrust into a feint, but the man behind her, the one whose throat she had cut, was reaching for her with his good arm. She might have wondered at his continued ability to fight, but she was in a place far beyond conscious thought, where time ran slowly, and hesitation led only to death.
Never take your feet off the ground, Cyhan had taught her long ago. He had punctuated his lessons with painful reminders every time she had used her strength to attempt a high flying jump. As soon as you jump like that, you lose the power to control your direction until you touch the ground again. A skilled opponent will take advantage of this, he had told her.
Penny sprang upward, twisting into a sideways roll as she went over the heads of the two men at the rear, the ones swinging the maces. Their weapons had too much momentum to change direction, even for men possessed of such inhuman strength as they were. Instead one of them reached for her with his free hand, seeking to arrest her flight and send her disastrously to the ground. It was exactly what Cyhan would have done.
Her sword removed his arm from the elbow down, the enchanted steel slicing through bones as easily as flesh. Finishing her arc, she landed behind them and let her momentum take her all the way to the floor. Her opponents’ weapons continued to sweep in a full circle, as their wielders followed through in an attempt to strike her as she landed. Her mid-air twist became a spin, as her legs folded into a crouch, and she took the left leg of the man she had just wounded, off at the knee. Off balance, his weapon went wide, giving her just enough room to slip beneath his companion’s mace.
From that point, the fight became simple slaughter, as she systematically dismembered the four men. She had already discovered that shock and loss of blood had little effect upon them. The only thing that stopped them was removing their limbs, and the only thing that killed them seemed to be decapitation. Fortunately, the magical sword she used was perfect for that task. Their speed and strength was as great as her own, possibly greater, but their combat experience was definitely more limited. If they had been better trained, or had possessed lighter weapons she would have been unable to prevail against so many.
Those maces are better suited for use against heavily armored opponents… she thought to herself, as she retreated from the bloody scene, heading for the stairs …like the Knights of Stone, the unwelcome thought finished itself in her mind. “Damnitt!” she swore.
Meanwhile… upstairs from where Penny was fighting, Elaine, Rose, and Lilly led the children away from the stairs and down the long corridor leading to the Illeniel family’s rooms. Elaine already knew they weren’t going to make it unopposed however, her magesight told her that three waited at the door that led to safety, dead guards at their feet. Two more were entering through a small window at the opposite end of the hallway, their hands ripping stones from the wall to make the opening large enough for them to pass. Within moments she and the others would be trapped between them.
How can they be so strong? she wondered silently. In her magesight, they glowed brilliantly with an intensity to their auras that she hadn’t seen since… her mind balked at the thought. That isn’t possible, she thought. Celior’s aura was stronger still, and his presence made it difficult to even think. Besides, there are too many of them.
“There are three ahead of us, and two more will soon be approaching from behind,” she told the others.
“There’s nowhere to hide!” said Lilly, in a voice tinged with incipient panic.
Rose put a hand on Lilly’s shoulder, trying to calm her, “Take a deep breath. Elaine can always make us invisible again.”
Gram tugged on his mother’s arm, “Where’s Dad? How did they get in here?”