that had slipped past. Her happy trills, which had emphasized each kill at the start, had faded, the excitement long worn into a mundane grind as the beasts continued to advance upon them.
Where there had initially been short lulls in the waves, the growing numbers of beasts in the ranks had stolen such pauses from them. Arrin swept left, certain Kirah would fill the gap, and set his blade upon the closest Grol. The gape of its throat cast but another coat of warm blood over Arrin’s arm and chest. He dripped crimson, the blood of the beasts a thick, wet blanket that hung upon him. The tart scent of bile and body fluids, the Grol coating the street in as much shit as blood, was stirred about him. It was a stench he could not quite ignore. He snorted it from his nose as he battled. Reddened streamers trailed over his mouth and chin.
His hilt slick with claret, he held his sword in a white-knuckled grip to keep it from slipping from his grasp. He cleaved the guts from another Grol as it closed, and set the point of his sword to work at the eyes of another. His ears rang with the effort, the sound of his breath loud inside his head.
He fought and fought, taking the head of a beast and neutering another, leaving the last behind to howl its loss until Kirah sent it to the grave. Severed hands spun in the air about Arrin, casting off reddened trails that whirled in their wake, their owners dead before their lost appendages struck the ground.
Arrin flowed under the song of the collar. The sting of its magic that flowed thick through his veins, drove him on, giving him the strength to carry on.
With no thoughts for anything but the destruction of his enemy arrayed before him, Arrin suddenly realized it was there no longer. He slowed his heart and brought his body to a halt. He stared out at the mass of Grol that snarled and snapped from a distance, their lines having drawn back beyond the reach of his sword. He heard Kirah at his back as he wondered at the beasts’ sudden loss of temerity.
They had not fled, but they had pulled back and now stood their ground, more of their number piling up in the ranks at their backs, but not advancing.
“Look,” Kirah spoke into his ear, her voice raw with exertion.
Arrin glanced over the heads of the gathered Grol and spied their ranks splitting at the rear. More of the Grol pushed their way through the lines, and even without seeing what threat they brought to bear, Arrin knew they were possessed of the Sha’ree relics. He could feel the energy of them.
He glanced over his shoulder at Kirah and could see that she too knew what approached. Her expression was one of weariness, its pall not hidden by the rebellious sneer plastered in red across her lips. She would not last much longer.
Arrin looked back to the empowered Grol that marched toward them and knew he too grew close to the end of his energy. Soon his arm would slow, his sword would slip, and then they would be buried under the furious wave of tooth and claw. It was inevitable.
He glanced about to see Grol still lurking at every turn. There would be no flight for them. He let a tired sigh slip loose. In his carelessness, his overconfidence in the beasts wanting him alive that he’d led Kirah to her death. He had betrayed her trust, her father’s, and even that of the Sha’ree. He had sworn much to them that he had no certainty in, speaking only hollow words. Perhaps he had meant them when they slipped from his tongue, but here amidst the crush of the Grol army, he could but laugh at their obvious emptiness.
“I’m sorry,” he told Kirah as he stared at the wall of beasts ahead.
She set her hand upon his shoulder. “If I am to die today, then it is with much glory. Only honor and peace await me after, Arrin Urrael, as it does you. I am without fear.”
“Then you are a fool, Kirah, as your brother said.” He turned his head to smile at her. “But then what am I to have led such a fool?” He looked back to the Grol. “If this is to be our last, let us at least take upon them such a toll as to live on forever in legend.” He would not let them take him. He raised his sword, quelling the trembles that shook his hand. “Come and die, beasts. If you would have our flesh this day, you would earn it at the cost of thousands of your brethren.”
Kirah howled at his back. He felt his skin prickle at the determination in her roughened voice. Their time had come, but they would make the most of it. They would not be buried in the earth, but in a sea of Grol blood. It would have to be enough.
The front rank split before them and dozens of long-snouted Grol separated from the lines, confidence apparent in their gaits and sharpened smiles. Like the beasts that had ambushed them in the woods, each of these wore the bronze bracers at their wrists and each glimmered green. They stood without weapons, their clawed hands held ready before them.
Though he had not known what to expect when he first fought their kind, he now had their measure, but that brought him no comfort. Even had he been fresh, Kirah at his side, he could not win through. He had been bested by four of the beasts that had held back in hopes of capturing him. He saw no mercy in the eyes of the empowered Grol that stood before them. They had come to end their resistance and Arrin could see no way of stopping them.
They drew closer, the Grol spreading out only slightly to keep Arrin and Kirah from lashing out at more than one at a time, but yet close enough for all of them to strike. These were the true warriors of the Grol, not the chattel that bled out upon the cobblestones.
“It was an honor,” he said, willing the last vestiges of the collar to furious life. Her reply was lost to the wind as he leapt at the Grol.
He darted in high, only to drop low. He had learned his lesson the last time, for all its value now. His blade crashed into the bronze of the first Grol’s bracer, crushing it about its wrist. The beast reared back and howled as Arrin moved for another. He pressed the advantage while it was still his; he armed with cold steel, they with only flesh, no matter how enchanted.
The Grol lashed out at him and he shifted right, cleaving the sharpened tips of its fingers off as he swept by. Kirah came from behind and landed her spear in its throat. In her off hand she bore a short sword shaded in wet red, clearly scavenged from the dead at their feet.
Arrin launched himself at another beast as Kirah veered off the opposite direction. He heard the clang of metal and the pained cry of a Grol behind him as he skewered the red eye of one before. The beasts closed about him.
The advantage had gone.
He felt the sharp burn of claws at his back, their line searing from his shoulder to his hip. The blow staggered him and he spun to keep the Grol in sight. He snapped his blade out to catch one of the charging beasts in the shoulder, the point sinking in but doing little to slow its advance. Before he even struck the ground, he felt his hand ripped from the hilt of his sword, the muscle at his forearm torn from the bone. He stared at it in disbelief as he crashed onto his back, blood spilling from the wound like wine from a shattered goblet. Tendrils of skin and muscle flapped in the wind of his fall.
The collar did its best to mute the pain but the Grol gave it no chance. A beast shredded the meat at his ribs and Arrin threw his uninjured arm in front of his face, narrowly diverting the claws that sought his eyes. They instead tore at his elbow, several dripping flaps of skin left in their wake.
Against his will, Arrin cried out as jagged teeth sunk into the meat at his side. His vision tunneled, encroaching black swallowing the world around him. The tuneless hum in his ears grew louder as he wallowed in the overwhelming pit of agony. The remnants of his sight were blocked by the furred bodies of the Grol as they swarmed over him like hounds fighting over a bone, grasping at him, pinning him down. Unable to see if Kirah had fallen, he hoped her death was swift.
A guttural cry slipped through the haze that had settled over him and he was suddenly aware he was laying still upon the hard cobblestones, the jostling hands and jaws of the Grol no longer tearing at him. He felt overly warm, as though he sat too close to a campfire, waves of heat wafting over him.
All around him he heard the sounds of battle, the dull impact of dead flesh hitting the ground. Steel clattered on stone and the dying cried out. The voices could only be Grol. He couldn’t help but smile for it must be Kirah set upon the beasts.
He heard her voice calling his name, the syllables drawn out serpentine by the hum at his ears. He opened his eyes to see a blur dotted with white hovering before him. He heard Kirah’s voice again and blinked his eyes, the wavering image before him slowly coalescing into Kirah’s speckled face. Worry crowded thick in her purple eyes. A narrow smile brightened her lips.
The sounds of war continued to ring inside his ears.
A glimmer of sense returning to pay momentary visit to his mind, Arrin lifted his head to see furred bodies
