Jo nodded and then asked, “Do you think they’ll find us in this storm?” Her voice trembled a little but her gaze was determined.
Flinn smiled grimly. “Not if we find them first.” He gave her and the boy a quick nod of reassurance, then dismounted.
Flinn took the griffon’s lead and turned Ariac around. He headed back across the hill the way they had come. In silence, Jo and Dayin followed him.
The warrior drew his sword silently. He patted Ariac’s neck and hoped the griffon’s strength wouldn’t give way. Then Flinn prayed to Tarastia for the opportunity to avenge himself against the orcs who followed him. As a knight in the Order of the Three Suns, he and his men had tangled often with both the Rooster’s tribe and Greasetongue’s. He could right a few wrongs today if the Immortal Tarastia was so inclined.
Though his sense of time was hampered by the ceaseless snowstorm and the incessant roar of the wind, Flinn came upon the orcs far sooner than he had thought he might. Barely twenty minutes after they had turned around, Ariac nibbled his master’s shoulder. Instantly, Flinn spun about and gestured for Jo and Dayin to dismount. He gave Ariac’s rein to the boy and pointed for Dayin to lead the animals off the hill and out of the way. Without a word the child disappeared into the snow. Flinn stepped off the trail, pulling Jo down beside him near a rocky outcropping. If Ariac’s senses were right, they would soon see the orc patrol following their trail in the storm.
Flinn whispered in Jo’s ear, “Wait for them to get by us before we attack. We will surprise them from behind, and with any luck we’ll get most of them right away. There shouldn’t be more than five or six of them. Make your strokes count, and remember what I said about not losing your sword.”
The young woman nodded. Flinn saw that she was shaking, but her eyes were bright and clear. Good—that’s the way to feel, Flinn thought just before one orc, then a second and a third came into view through the swirling snow. They were humanlike—as tall as Flinn, though considerably broader of girth, and clad in misshapen armor. They wore boiled leather helmets, from which their flattened jowls protruded. Stained tusks and beady eyes lay in the shadow of the helmets. The orcs appeared completely oblivious to anything but the trail they followed. The snow and wind were fast obscuring the tracks Flinn’s animals had made only a short time ago, and the three orcs bent over the trail and argued which way to continue.
The largest orc sniffed the snow. Flinn stiffened. This beast was a tracker, an orc who could follow a trail by scent alone. Some trackers could pick up a trail even through rain or snow, or after days or weeks had passed. Flinn bit the inside of his cheek. Here was his first target.
Jo tensed beside the warrior, and Flinn put his hand on her shoulder. Two more orcs came into view. They stopped by the first three orcs, who were kneeling and bickering loudly. Flinn caught the gist of their words: the orcs had come upon the place where he and Jo had parted from Dayin.
Flinn whispered, “The ones on the right are mine; the others are yours.” He tightened his hand upon the hilt of his sword, waiting until the orcs’ argument reached its peak.
“Now!” the warrior hissed, springing forward. His sword sang to the right, and he heard Jo’s on the left connect with orc armor. Flinn’s blow came arcing down on the back of the tracker’s neck. The monster never knew what cleaved his spine. The orc crumpled where he stood, blood staining the snow beneath him.
The remaining orcs cried in anger and surprise. Flinn caught sight of one of them leaping toward Jo, but he had no time to call out. The other three orcs rushed him with their spears. Deftly he dodged their attack and swung his heavy blade, managing to break one spear as he parried the other two. The orc with the broken spear whirled in his charge and jumped on Flinn, a jagged knife in the creature’s gnarled hands.
Flinn tumbled backward. He and the orc rolled into the snow. Flinn grabbed the orc’s dagger hand. He twisted the rubbery wrist until the blade sunk into the monster’s back. The orc cried out in pain. With a roar the other two orcs charged again with their spears. Flinn rolled onto his back, pulling the orc on top of him as he did so. The other orcs’ spearheads sank into the chest of their comrade. Flinn scurried from beneath the dead orc, barely escaping the spears pulled from the new-fallen body. The warrior sprang backward, his sword held before him.
Jo backed up to him. He was glad to see she hadn’t been injured. “There’re two more lurking in the shadows,” she shouted.
Flinn grunted. “They’ll attack, don’t worry.” The rest of his words were cut short, however, because one of the spear-bearing orcs charged Jo. She ducked beneath the thrust and came up with her own attack. Just then, another orc charged Flinn. He leaped forward, grabbing the orc’s spear handle and pulling. The beast stumbled forward into Flinn’s waiting sword. With one quick thrust Flinn dispatched the monster.
From out of the swirling snow, two more orcs leaped toward him. They wielded battle axes, and their heavy blows rained down on Flinn. He parried them, straining to meet the weight of the axes. Jo was busy with her own orc, and Flinn couldn’t expect any help from her. The two who attacked had obviously fought together before, for they timed their attacks well. One swung his blow, and the other would immediately follow that blow with his own. Flinn gritted his teeth and smiled. The fight warmed his blood. He parried both axes and tried to snake his way past the orcs’ defenses.
A ball of bright orange light suddenly burst in the space between Flinn and the two axe-wielding orcs. The monsters’ tiny eyes opened wide at the sudden light. The orcs stammered in fear. The fiery ball hung in the air for a few moments, and then collapsed in on itself, changing into three white doves. The birds dived at the orcs, befuddling the monsters. Dayin! Flinn thought, and from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the boy with his hands spread toward the orcs. The warrior jumped forward, swinging his blade in a shining horizontal arc. One orc fell instantly, his head almost severed from his body. Flinn continued his sword’s swing, but twisted the blade so that the flat hit the second orc. The monster dropped his axe and then collapsed into the snow.
Flinn turned to help Jo with the remaining orc, only to see her draw her sword from her opponent’s belly. A brutal smile hung on her face, a smile uncommon to so inexperienced a squire. The girl had enjoyed this bout. Jo wiped her blade on the orc’s padded leather armor and approached Flinn, her step sure and sound. The young woman had killed two orcs and not been injured. Flinn was pleased. Dayin, too, joined Flinn by the fallen orc.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” Jo poked the orc with her foot when she saw the monster move his head.
“I want to question him as to why the orcs are on the move,” Flinn answered. “Dayin, get some rope, will you? And bring the animals back with you; we’re going to have to find shelter soon. I don’t want to chance questioning him here in the open at the risk of our not finding shelter.” The boy nodded and disappeared into the falling snow.
“But after we question him, he’ll know where our camp is,” Jo protested. “Or will we just have to kill him after questioning him?”
“No, we’ll tie him up and keep watch over him. In the morning we’ll leave him tied to a tree. He’ll escape by next sundown, but we’ll be long gone.” Flinn turned toward the orc. “Jo, watch him—if he looks like he’s coming to, hit him on the head with your sword’s pommel.”