branch. His eyes narrowed and he looked to Dreg, then back to the sword hanging at his hip. There was no doubt that it was Lord Gregory’s sword. How it had gotten from the Skyler Clan village where they had left Lord Gregory to die last summer was a mystery.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, boy,” Dreg mocked. “Am I the first real man you’ve ever seen?”
“Tell me where you got that sword and I won’t kill you when this battle’s over,” Mikahl said. His rage, at the moment, was barely containable. “It’s my only offer.”
Dreg laughed. “A crippled fool searching for his wife left it for me, boy. Who said that you’ll live through this battle to kill me when it’s done?”
“You misunderstood.” Mikahl rolled his shoulders. “I said that I wouldn’t kill you when the battle was over, you fargin slaver…”
There was a sharp ringing hiss as Ironspike came free of its scabbard. The blade was radiating white with Mikahl’s rage. It was so bright that it threw shadows in the broad daylight. Its magical symphony filled Mikahl’s head, and the tingle of its power flooded through his veins.
“…I’ll kill you before it gets started,” Mikahl finished. Before Dreg could even draw breath, a sizzling streak of yellow lightning blasted from Ironspike’s blade into his chest sending him whirling backwards off his horse, feet over head, over feet.
Chapter Fourteen
Mikahl reined Thunder around and yelled, “Charge!” Then he spurred his eager mount back through the narrow corridor his parting ranks of soldiers made for him. Over Ironspike’s symphony he heard the thrump and thrum of his archers loosing arrows into the Dakaneese. The thunder of hooves and boots pushing forward, and the sound of ringing steel filled the air. As soon as the archers loosed their second volley, he called for them to turn around and fire at the zard-men who were closing in behind. A few of the foot soldiers, and two of the cavalrymen who had been forced to the rear of the charge turned to aid Mikahl. Their courage was welcome in the fray, but the riders only served to keep some of the archers from having a clear line of fire at the closing enemy.
Many of the fierce zard-men already had arrows sprouting from their fronts, leaving them looking like scaly porcupines. Thunder leapt into their midst and Mikahl swept Ironspike in a gleaming, blood-slinging arc through anything in his path. The breed giant stepped clear of the blade and brought around his tree-trunk club into Thunder’s unprotected side. Mikahl was thrown from the saddle as the horse leapt and churned in the air from the force of the blow. Mikahl landed awkwardly, but rolled quickly to his feet. The zard-man before him was as surprised as Mikahl was, but Mikahl put his blade into the zard’s neck before it could blink. As it hissed and gurgled away its life, Mikahl was relieved to see Thunder bucking and kicking at the zard nearest him. Mikahl barely dodged the huge club then. He found himself looking straight at the rock-solid chest of the half-breed beast. Had it been a full blooded giant, such as Borg, or King Aldar, he’d have been looking at a crotch instead of a chest, but this was a wild and savage thing that had never fully evolved. With a quick thrust he jabbed Ironspike’s white-hot blade deep into the breed giant’s thigh then dove away. The beast roared out in agony as its flesh sizzled and smoked where Ironspike had stabbed it.
Mikahl hoped that, once he’d reduced Dreg to a smoking corpse, the sell-swords would have turned and run, but they hadn’t. It was probably because of the Dakaneese soldiers that would witness their desertion. King Ra’Gren was notoriously merciless to any who betrayed him.
The knot of battle in the streets was fierce. Steel rang upon steel and the air was saturated with the spray of sticky blood and cries of agony. Some of the Highwander archers threw down their bows and resorted to their short swords and daggers. In most cases a clear shot with a bow was impossible now. Some of the better marksmen waited and loosed with expert precision, finding an enemy’s exposed neck or ribcage.
An orb of orange swirling flame came down among the men from a balcony. Dreg’s wizard was joining the battle. Another orb exploded among the archers. The streaks of iron-tipped death they were loosing into the Dakaneese all but stopped. The survivors of the initial blast fought the scorching wizard’s fire that clung to their skin and armor like feathers to tar. The few that had escaped the magical blaze held their ground and continued to fight.
The zard used short swords to some effect, but became most deadly when they were weaponless and fighting with only tooth and claw. They could drop to all fours and were quickly under the blows thrown by Mikahl’s men. Their powerful jaws were filled with sharp tiny teeth and they could use their tails to sweep men off balance and to divert otherwise lethal blows. Mikahl saw this, and while the breed giant limped awkwardly at him, he sent an array of sizzling crimson pulses into the zard from Ironspike’s magical blade. The breed giant’s club came down at him and he caught it with his sword in midair. Ironspike went right through the wood and Mikahl was brutally cracked in the side of his shoulder by the log that came free from its handle. His ear felt as if it had been ripped from his head, and he stumbled away from the battle clutching it, and cursing his lack of foresight. In a rage, he charged back at the breed giant, and as the monstrous savage committed to the swing of his shortened club, Mikahl spun into the blow and brought Ironspike around in an overhead chopping arc. It wasn’t the breed giant’s head he was aiming for, though, it was its forearm. The white-hot blade cleaved through flesh and bone so smoothly that its heat nearly cauterized the wound. The breed screamed in agony as its weapon, and part of its arm, went tumbling into the muddy street. The breed giant backed away then. Mikahl feigned a charging step after the creature and it broke into a run. Mikahl saw, not too far behind the fleeing beast, a large group of men on horseback all with bright blue cloaks billowing out behind them. He could only hope that General Spyra hadn’t let him down.
An explosion of crackling lightning erupted in the middle of the fray in the street. Clods of smoking dirt and debris flew out from the impact. An empty helm tumbled through the air and what might have been a hand clutching a short sword clattered down not too far from where Mikahl stood. An arrow streaked upward from the knot of men. He followed its path. It deflected away a few feet in front of a man in a black robe who was looking down from a balcony and gesturing frantically.
“Got you,” Mikahl whispered as he pointed Ironspike at the robed figure. He found the melody for lightning and let it rise above the rest of the chorus. A bolt shot forth from the blade into the unsuspecting mage. Mikahl held it there for long smoldering moments then finally, when the smoke was rolling up from the man in a thick black cloud, he let it go. The wizard’s sizzling body crumpled to the deck. Mikahl turned to see the approaching blue- cloaked riders. A few of them ran the wounded breed giant screaming into the river. The rest kept coming. Mikahl was heartened to see swords coming out of scabbards and being raised high. These weren’t the traitorous pikemen that King Broderick had sent to betray him to Dreg. These were General Spyra’s men. He looked back to the battle in the street. The sell-sword’s and the Dakaneese were pulling back, thinking that surprise reinforcements had come.
“Break!” Mikahl yelled above the din. “To the roadside, to the alleys. Break men, break!”
Those that heard, repeated the call, and the Highwander men darted out of the lane into alleyways, or out toward the docks and the fishing houses on the river’s side of the road. The Dakaneese were shocked when the blue-cloaks rode right into them and began cleaving and slashing away.
Mikahl hoped the long double-time march General Spyra had imposed on his men hadn’t been too hard on them. They had turned north out of Dreen and trekked through the lower Evermore Forest around the passage that Mikahl’s men had taken. Mikahl was glad to see them. Keeping his men moving slow enough for General Spyra to keep up had been taxing.
Mikahl gathered some of the men from the roadside and put them to the task of taking prisoners while the rest came into the dwindling battle to help finish the Dakaneese soldiers off. To Mikahl’s surprise, General Spyra had come himself. The man fought brilliantly, just like he had against Pael’s undead army. He seemed dissapointed when Mikahl called him away from the butchery to speak with him.
“Well met, General,” Mikahl grinned. “What of the real blue-cloaks?”
“Stripped naked and under guard just north of Castlemont,” the General reported. “Most of them laid down their arms freely and swore they would kneel to you. They seem to dislike King Broderick’s treachery as much as you do. I still put them under guard, though. So that’s the zard, then?” the General asked, directing his gaze over to a twitching green-scaled mass at the roadside. “They don’t seem as deadly as the rumor-mongers would have us believe.”
