“Toh!” Beware!
A wet thump ended the cry, but Geth and Ashi were already on their feet. “Aruget!” shouted Geth, drawing Wrath from its scabbard. “Up! Everyone up!”
The sleeping forms by the fire thrashed and rolled from their blankets to grab for weapons, but dark figures were already rushing in on the camp. With screams of “Itaa!”-Wrath in hand, Geth heard “Attack!”-hobgoblins dressed in ragged clothing and armor came bursting out of the dry gully on his side of the camp.
“Grandfather Rat!” he snarled. The streambeds they’d chosen for protection of their campsite had become a path to lead their attackers closer. They still had to claw their way up the steep sides of the gullies, but that wouldn’t slow them much. Some of the hobgoblins were already helping to hoist others higher, and even more attackers were sprinting down the streambed, any attempt at stealth abandoned.
Geth jumped forward and swung Wrath at the first hobgoblin out of the gully. The heavy blade of the sword bit deep into his neck, nearly severing his head, before he even had a chance to rise up from his knees. The blow had nothing honorable about it, but Geth wasn’t an honorable fighter. He kicked the body before it could collapse, and it toppled back into the gully, knocking down two more climbers.
But attackers were swarming up the bank everywhere. Another crawling hobgoblin stabbed at his calf with a dagger. Ashi’s sword darted out, piercing the hobgoblin’s arm, then flicking high to slash across his face. He cried out and rolled away.
His thrashing almost brought Ashi down as well. She stepped back and nearly fell a second time as her foot caught on a root. “Ashi, get back to the fire!” Geth ordered. “Fight where you can see!” He swung Wrath again.
“I can see just fine!” Ashi protested.
Geth swept her feet out from under her and snapped his right arm up into the space where her shoulders had been. A hobgoblin’s sword crashed into his great gauntlet and went skittering along the black steel. Geth twisted, sweeping the sword aside and hacking upward with Wrath in the same motion. The twilight purple blade cut through leather armor and into the flesh beneath. The hobgoblin fell back. Ashi pushed herself to her feet and sprinted back to the fire without another word.
The others in their party were all up and fighting now, but their attackers were coming in from multiple directions and outnumbered them easily. Vounn was the only one not fighting, but she crouched by the fire, stirring it up into a blaze that threw light and shadows into the night as Ashi fought back anyone who tried to approach. Tariic and the soldiers Thuun and Krakuul stood shoulder to shoulder in tight formation. There was no sign of Aruget. Ekhaas fought on her own, beating back blows from an attacker wielding a heavy spiked mace. Chetiin leaped from shadow to shadow, striking low with one of the curved daggers he wore on his wrists and leaving squirming, wailing enemies in his wake. Geth glimpsed Midian standing still, a polished metal baton in his left hand, as a hobgoblin advanced on him-then the gnome snapped his wrist and a long, slim head swung out of the baton’s shaft, locking in place and transforming the baton into a deadly little pick. Midian spun, and the point of the pick punched into the meat of his attacker’s leg. The hobgoblin dropped to his knees. A second blow put a neat hole in his skull.
More attackers were coming over the sides of the gully near Geth. Three hobgoblins came at him at once, advancing in a wedge like Tariic and his soldiers, and Geth began to regret sending Ashi away. He spun to one side as the wedge came at him and swung Wrath in a raking arc. The nearest hobgoblin deflected the blow with a shield, but Geth followed it up by throwing his entire weight against the shield. The hobgoblin staggered back under the unexpected tactic, and the wedge collapsed. Geth put his opponent down with a punch that left the imprints of knuckle spikes on his temple, then rolled to his feet. The remaining two hobgoblins of the wedge had recovered and had been joined by two more.
Four to one with more enemies climbing up. Geth cursed and shouted, “I need help!”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Ekhaas finish her attacker with a long slash across his chest, then turn to him. “Stand back!” she called, then drew a deep breath and sang.
The songs with which the duur’kala invoked her magic were wild and powerful, sometimes even primal, as if they echoed the legendary music of the world’s creation. The brief snatch of song that she sang now had a thick but flowing quality to it, like soap or half-melted butter. Geth jumped away-and saw the ground under the advancing hobgoblins’ feet shimmer, then turn greasy and slick.
His attackers’ legs shot out from under them, and they fell like children on an icy pond. The dark stain of the spell spread out behind them, too, dipping down over the edge of the gully. More hobgoblins yelled as they slid down the suddenly slippery slope.
“Paaldaask!” shouted someone-Spellcaster! — and the nearest attackers turned their attention on Ekhaas. Her ears folded back, and she sang another spell. The air around her folded, and abruptly five identical versions of the duur’kala stood on the defensive. Geth knew this magic. It was only an illusion, and it wouldn’t fool their enemies for long. He moved to help her but a hand wrapped around his ankle and he slammed hard to the ground.
One of the hobgoblins caught by Ekhaas’s spell had managed to reach out and grab him. Geth kicked at her but she rolled aside and pulled herself up his leg, slithering out of the magical mess.
Then Chetiin was there, appearing out of the shadows and leaping onto the hobgoblin’s back. He grabbed her hair in one hand, pulled her head back, and slit her throat. Her grip on Geth spasmed once, then relaxed. He pulled away from her and from the blood that flooded out of her body. Chetiin, however, jumped from her to one of the other thrashing hobgoblins, plunged his dagger into him, then leaped to the next and to the next, killing them all in moments without ever touching the slippery ground. He jumped clear of the magic again and looked at Geth, still sitting in the dirt. “Ekhaas?” he reminded the shifter before disappearing into the shadows once more.
Geth twisted to his feet, caught another charging hobgoblin with a slash between the ribs, and looked to the duur’kala. Her illusory duplicates were gone, and she was bleeding from a wound to her left shoulder. But she had Ashi and Midian fighting beside her now, and they were beating back the attackers. Ashi’s scarf had come loose, and Geth could see the fierce joy of battle on her dragon-marked and blood-spattered face. Midian’s expression was more grim and focused, but he fought surprisingly well for a researcher. Geth spun around, taking in their situation. The campsite was washed in blood. The bodies of their attackers were everywhere and almost seemed to outnumber those still standing. A few hobgoblins still faced the wedge of Tariic and his soldiers, a few more were being forced back toward the edge of the gully by Ekhaas, Ashi, and Midian. Another pair closed tentatively on Geth.
He could hear sounds of retreat in the gully. The hobgoblins, large as their numbers were, had picked a target too tough for them. He turned to the two hobgoblins still facing him and pointed Wrath at them. “Skiir,” he growled at them. Run.
For a moment it looked like they might have considered it, then the gaze of one of them, a lean whip of a hobgoblin with one scarred ear, moved past Geth. The shifter glanced over his shoulder, following it.
Vounn stood alone and undefended at the fire.
In the heartbeat that he was distracted, the hobgoblin with the scarred ear moved, thrusting his hapless companion at Geth and surging toward Vounn with his sword raised. The startled hobgoblin who had been pushed at Geth flailed wildly with his weapon. Geth bashed him with his gauntlet and felt bone crunch, but he was an instant too late. The hobgoblin with the scarred ear ran past him. No one else was any closer to Vounn. Through Wrath, Geth heard and understood the words the hobgoblin screamed out as he charged: “You die here, Deneith!”
Vounn’s eyes narrowed, and the dragonmark that peeked out from her sleeve on the inside of her right wrist seemed to flash in the firelight. The air rippled around the lady seneschal just as the hobgoblin’s sword fell-and the blade skimmed aside, deflected by the power of the Mark of Sentinel. Left off-balance by the failed blow, the hobgoblin stumbled. Vounn parted a fold of her robes, and with a motion that had the swift certainty of years of practice, pulled a long thin stiletto from a hidden sheath. One precise blow drove the needle-like blade into the soft point at the back of his neck and up into his skull. The hobgoblin jerked, then dropped forward, sliding off the stiletto.
Vounn saw Geth’s expression of amazement and answered it with a thin smile. “I am a daughter of Deneith,” she said. “I can defend myself.”
The last of the hobgoblins fighting Tariic cried out and fled down into the gully to join their retreating fellows. The final two attackers who had been facing Ekhaas and the others tried to do the same, but they didn’t make it.
