This pocket would prove the last stand for Gull, Greensleeves, and Morven. They would fight and then die. In dying, choose blades or a fall.
Gull shoved his sister behind him, against the rocks, and hefted his axe. Morven lifted his pathetic steel spike.
The barbarians struck.
The same people who had captured Gull and Greensleeves in that copse at the beach, the barbarians were normal humans except for tusks and white hair. Tattooed and berry-stained blue, they dressed in skins and war harness, carried painted rawhide shields, and either curved bronze swords or obsidian-headed clubs like small pickaxes. Gull noted the few women among them were equally tusked and tattooed. They rushed blindly forward, weapons raised, howling like demons.
Gull's vision filled blue, and he had no more time to think, or even call to his sister. This was the fight of his life.
A screaming barbarian swung his sword overhand. The woodcutter shoved his axe haft in the air so the blade gouged hickory. Wheeling, Gull slammed the butt end into the man's temple, dropping him.
A woman rushed, jabbed with her burnished sword for his groin. Gull dropped his axe handle to block, but her thrust was a feint. Quick as a snake's tongue, the sword flicked back, aimed for his belly. He flinched and ducked, caught the point in the ribs. It hurt like fury. Swearing, he batted the sword up, smashed the handle into the woman's jaw. Teeth broke, then her jaw. She collapsed, and Gull was glad. She was too dangerous to fight.
Gull cursed steadily as he swung and dodged. He hated to fight them. These people were as much slaves to Towser as Gull had been. But under the wizard's control, they'd kill him if they could.
And undoubtedly would. They were warriors bred to the sword, and Gull was a woodcutter. He'd been lucky so far, but it couldn't last. Someone would gut him before long.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Morven had gained a bronze sword and shield, flailed about as if threshing grain. He dinged heads and hands and kept a half dozen warriors at bay.
A pair of barbarians, male and female, sized Gull up and attacked from two directions. From the right, the man swung his war club, and Gull shifted. But that was the plan. The woman stabbed from his left, chipped his elbow so blood spattered his side. Gull could see the advantage of fighting with a shield. One-handed, the woodcutter slapped his axe at the man, but he'd jumped back. The duo called to each other, closed to set up the same attack.
It had worked once, it would work again. Gull would be nibbled to death.
Then sounded a crashing of breaking wood and stone spears.
With a snapping of vines and clumping of great wood-and-iron feet, Stiggur broke the clockwork beast free of the bramble wall.
The beast's articulated-cone eyes trained on the woodcutter. Atop, like a child on its father's shoulders, the boy looked frantically at the barbarians about to engulf his hero. Hanging on to the lurching beast's neck, hauling levers, the boy steered for the wave of barbarians, trailing vines by the bushelful. Threatened by the fearsome feet and legs, the blue men and women backed from Gull's pitiful line, retreated around the beast toward the clearing by the altar. One barbarian, ducking the wrong way, was pinned between a back leg and the monolith, crushed so blood spurted from his mouth.
As the beast loomed overhead, Gull fell back against Greensleeves to keep from being crushed himself. Stiggur brought the monster to a thunderous halt on the very lip of the bluff.
Morven and Stiggur shouted hoorays, but Gull shushed them. 'They'll regroup and come at us again! They must, the geas compels them! Stiggur, get the beast to lie down! We need a barricade!'
Leaning out and down, biting his lip, the boy frowned, ready to cry. 'But, Gull, it can't lie down! There ain't no lever for that!'
'What?' The woodcutter cursed. Of course there wasn't. The beast remained upright like a sleeping horse. Liko and levers had shoved it over. So what to do? 'Well… blast! Turn it, then!'
Gears whirring and protesting, Stiggur inched the monster in a tight circle, all the while Gull feared it would sunder the cliff and pitch them all to the rocks below. They ended with their gap shrunk to nine feet or so, the width of the beast's underbelly. The stout legs, thick as wharf pilings, offered shelter like four tree trunks.
But barbarians hooted, chanted to taunt their enemies and egg each other on. They elbowed and shoved and argued, shuffling into rough ranks for the next attack. Gull guessed they used some hierarchy for who attacked first and who second, a function of caste or family or past deeds. It made for much arguing.
In the momentary lull, Gull tried to think what to do. Could they survive a drop to the rocks below? Not without breaking limbs. Was it worthwhile to scale this rock jumble? What lay on the other side? He clutched his bleeding elbow, rubbed slashed ribs, and despaired. They'd all die here, and soon. Could he put Greensleeves up with Stiggur, have him bash through the brambles and get away…?
Greensleeves grabbed his arm, pointing up.
Taking advantage of the pause, the mountain lion gathered its haunches and leaped from the peak of the monolith to the heaped rocks. Though it dropped twenty feet or more, the big cat landed without a sound. Hissing at them, it bounded over the rocks and out of sight. Yet a great snapping and snarling welled up, another scrap, and Gull recognized the snattering of an angry badger. So that was where the giant badger had gone.
'We get more catfights,' muttered Morven. He plucked and yanked at a boulder, trying to free it, roll it down for protection, but it stayed put. 'Handy. Why not fire-spitting dragons?'
Gull rubbed his brow, pressed his bleeding ribs. He could have screamed in frustration. If only Greensleeves could control the damned animals, turn them against the barbarians, compel them to fight. Or conjure something that could think…
He barked so suddenly his sister jumped. 'The giant, Liko! Remember him, Greenie? Call him! And the centaurs! No, wait…' She'd already conjured them, but they'd galloped off, cut off by the blue army. He searched a mental list as jumbled as the rocks. 'What about Tomas, the red soldiers-' No, Greensleeves never met them. Who else? The paladin? No. The ant soldiers? No good either. 'Get the goblins, even! Remember that little thief, Egg Sucker?'
From atop the clockwork beast, Stiggur called, 'They're getting ready to charge, Gull!'
'I want to know, where's Towser?' said the sailor. 'I don't like him running loose, thinking up more things to hurl at us!'
But a shout from Stiggur made him pause. The boy behind them.
Burned gold by the setting sun, a lone man stood atop the stone pile. In black leather and plain helmet, he carried a short sword and shield, was scarred down one side of his face.
'Kem!'
The bodyguard scuffed across the rocks, hopped and thumped down alongside Gull.
The woodcutter griped, 'What do you want? Come to beg our surrender for Towser?'
Puckered skin sneered high on one side. 'I knew it'd be a mistake helping you.'
The two men argued calmly as if standing before an ale bar in town, rather than awaiting slaughter. Gull said, 'We don't need your help.'
'Well, you got it, like it or not.'
'Don't expect any thanks.'
'I'll thank you!' Morven called, still yanking at rocks. 'Thank you! Now kiss and make up and fight the enemy, you codfish peckers!'
Gull gripped his aching elbow. Blood trickled down his forearm and made his axe handle slick. 'Sister, can you think of anything to help us?'
But Greensleeves listened to silent sound. One hand against the monolith, she curled the other, raised it…
'Here we go!' shouted Kem. He pushed to Gull's left, his wounded side, and lifted his sword. Gull wiped blood on his tunic, hefted his axe. Morven clanged his stolen sword against his shield, sang a snatch of some sailor's ditty.
The barbarians finally had managed ranks of six. Chanting together, banging weapons, they advanced in step.
This charge was different. After a dozen paces, the main body halted and kept chanting, while the front six launched themselves at the line. Gull guessed they were either a suicide squad, or else young warriors out for
