Sons of Evil: Book 1 Book of Dread (35 page)

“Move away at an angle,” she
said. “We need to get some distance.”

“That’ll expose our backs,”
Darius pointed out.

“I know,” Uesra replied. She
pulled back her hood, and turned to face the wood. “I’ve got us covered.”

They managed another two
hundred feet before those hidden broke cover. A group of hairy-looking beasts
with nasty fangs and nastier halberds trotted out to form a line some thirty
feet in front of them. They outnumbered the travelers three-to-one.

“Norgoblins,” Uesra muttered
as she moved back in front of her companions. “Spread out,” she ordered quietly.
“Ten foot intervals.”

The largest of the norgoblins
stepped forward. He was nearly seven feet tall and well-muscled, and wore rough
leather armor and carried a thick wooden shield. “We have no issue with you,
Ice Elf,” he growled. “But these are our lands.”

“Then apparently you do have
an issue. These are open lands, and we need to pass through them.”

The norgoblins growled at
this, and their leader frowned, feeling his hand being forced already. “You and
the other elf may leave,” he said. “The others we will take prisoner.”

Uesra sighed inwardly. So much
for the cloaks convincing the norgoblins they were all elves. “We stay
together. And we cannot go back.”

“Then you will be made a
prisoner as well.”

Uesra unsheathed the two
scimitars she carried. “These are Ashtalon and Thellas. If you do not let us
pass, they will spell your doom.”

The norgoblins growled and
laughed, but their leader hesitated. He had heard stories of the fighting
abilities of some of the Ice Elves from witnesses he trusted. “We outnumber
you,” he pointed out.

“You do,” she confirmed. “And
I am not so vain as to promise death to your entire band. But you I have
singled out. Let us pass, or die.”

He rubbed the back of his hand
against his mouth, trying to find an out that could salvage his pride. Failing
to do so, he banged his weapon on his shield three times and said. “Take them. Now.”
As his troops surged forward, he stepped back, his eyes never leaving Uesra.

As the charge began, Uesra’s
companions drew their weapons or, in Adrianna’s case, prepared to cast a spell.
Uesra slid back into the spaced line her friends had formed, while Silas moved
in front of Adrianna to give her cover.

The norgoblins lost much of
what discipline they had before the first blow was struck. Incensed at Uesra’s
insults to their leader’s honor, too many made for her, thereby getting in one
another’s way and yielding much of their numerical advantage elsewhere. Of the
group making for the female Ice Elf, two never made it, being brought down by
deadly shots from Xanar’s bow.

Uesra’s biggest fear in the
initial surge was not the norgoblin’s weapons but rather the sheer weight of
their charge. She knew from past experience that she was much swifter than the
hairy brutes, and even badly outnumbered she was confident in her scimitars and
her skill. But if enough of the norgoblins simply decided to try to knock her
to the ground, she would be hard-pressed to defend herself. She hoped they
weren’t bright enough to figure that out as she watched their angles of approach
and positioned herself as best she could to survive the initial onslaught.

Two things allowed Uesra to
engage in the fight effectively. One of the norgoblins was quicker than the
others and arrived first, bringing his halberd down viciously as he skidded to
a stop before her. She easily parried the blow, and the norgoblin’s very
presence forced the next to arrive to change tack to go around him. The first
norgoblin, at least for the first critical moments of the fight, unwittingly
acted as a shield for Uesra. In addition, Adrianna unleashed a fireball at the
dense group of norgoblins rushing Uesra, setting one ablaze, singeing two
others, and causing four more to scatter in different directions.

Darius found he had to step
forward to find an enemy to fight, as none of the norgoblins initially charged
him directly. As he moved he drew the attention of the nearest beast, but
before they could clash an arrow lanced past Darius’ ear and lodged in the
norgoblin’s throat. The monster clutched at the arrow, then let it go, looking
at his hand with a confused look on his face. Then he fell back, dead. Darius
moved toward the next nearest norgoblin, half-expecting an arrow to interrupt
before he could fight.

Barlow dropped a norgoblin
quickly with Gabriel, then angled to hack at the group trying to converge on
Uesra. As he drew near, he wasn’t sure she really needed his help.

The scimitars wielded by the
she-elf moved at a dizzying speed, alternately meeting metal and biting into
flesh and bone. She moved with a fluid grace, her actions flowing one into the
next with effortless ease. Soon after the battle had been joined she had to hop
back to be clear of the three dead norgoblins lying at her feet. The others
that had converged upon her, too stupid or too stubborn to see what was
happening, pressed the attack.

It wasn’t just the nearest
norgoblins that rushed forward to test Uesra. The two that had come closest to
Silas and Adrianna misread Uesra's backward movement as retreat. Preferring
their chances against her rather than against a mage, they veered away from the
waiting Silas.

The cleric looked back at
Adrianna, who understood immediately. “Go,” she told him. Like Barlow on the
left, Silas now closed on the grouped norgoblins from the right.

Uesra continued to backpedal,
but it was no indication that she was losing the battle. She kept the
norgoblins strung out, fighting one or two at a time while making the others
easier targets for her companions. As each norgoblin fell to her blades, the
dead became obstacles to the living, which threw their attacks further off
balance.

The norgoblin leader had kept
a safe distance from the fighting, with one of his lieutenants by his side. He
had hoped his force could overwhelm the travelers, and had wanted to swoop in
when the fighting was nearly done, striking a final blow and stealing as much
of the glory as possible. Now as the battle went from bad to worse, he felt a
trembling start in his legs and work its way up to his chest and arms. He
wanted to throw down his weapon and run, but he was frozen in place. And the
she-elf would soon be free to keep her promise to him.

Adrianna gave him the out he
needed. She unleashed another fireball, a smaller, less effective burst than
her earlier effort that was more show than anything else. The male elf’s bow
was proving far more deadly at a distance, but simple creatures like the
norgoblins had long-seated fears around magic. Something clicked in the
norgoblin leader’s mind, and he now felt free to retreat as soon as he called
upon his remaining troops to do the same. “Mage!” he screamed. “Fall back! Follow
me!” With that he was off, without sparing a glance back to see if his forces
had heard and obeyed.

They had,
and the fighting ended almost as abruptly as it began. Xanar readied another
arrow and looked at Uesra with a raised eyebrow.

“Let them go,” she said. “They’ll
not trouble us again.”

Darius was looking at Xanar as
the elf relaxed his muscles. Much to his surprise, the arrow, which appeared as
if it might be made of glass or crystal, vanished as he did so.

“Magic bow?” Darius asked.

Xanar nodded. He drew back the
string, and another arrow appeared.

Silas smiled. “I had wondered
why you carried no quiver.”

“Nice to not have to fetch
them after use, too,” Xanar said.

“What of the arrows?” Darius
asked.

“Ice,” Xanar said.

“Sounds like they’d be a bit
fragile.”

“Let’s call it very hard ice,
then,” Xanar said. He fired the arrow toward a nearby tree. The projectile
easily penetrated the wood.

Barlow had been watching the
fleeing norgoblins, and was still looking toward the wood even after they were
well out of sight. “You seemed certain they will not return,” he said to Uesra.
“I’ve not dealt with these creatures before, but…”

“You fear they’ll return in
larger numbers,” she said.

“Yes.”

“In another situation they
might, perhaps if we had attacked first, or simply outnumbered them. But their
leader was afraid. He did not want to fight.”

“Then why did you push him?”
Darius wanted to know. “It sounded like you were almost daring him to start
something.”

“I was, but only to better our
chances. Once they broke cover, he really had no options other than us
surrendering or fighting. If he believed they would win, he would have attacked
immediately, and without any discussion. Once I had singled him out I believed
he would use the battle to try to sneak away, which, fortunately, he did.”

“So he won’t try to lead them
back, even if he receives further reinforcements,” Silas said.

“They work in small groups,”
Xanar replied. “He’d need to ask for help, against a party of six. He won’t do
that. He’d lose even more respect with his own forces. Plus, he likely will not
even have such an opportunity.”

“Why is that?” Adrianna asked.

“His group no doubt is aware
that he did not join the fight,” Uesra answered. “Some, if not all, will break
from him over such perceived cowardice.”

“And when norgoblins break,
they do so in rather violent ways,” Xanar added.

“They fight amongst
themselves,” Silas concluded.

Uesra nodded. “To the death.”

Darius glanced at the dead
norgoblins, then off to the east. “So where does that leave us?”

“Ready to start off again,”
Xanar said. “Before the smell of norgoblin blood draws scavengers.”

No one wanted to know what
those scavengers might be.

*

When they were well away from
the site of the battle, Barlow complimented Uesra on her fighting skills, then
asked about her swords. “I noticed you named them. Enchanted weapons?”

She nodded. “Attuned to me as
well. Although others could use them, and I other weapons.”

“I don’t doubt that. I didn’t
think the swords gave you the talent you have to use them.”

“I was well-trained, over many
years. I sense your weapon is special as well.”

“Gabriel. A paladin sword,
most effective against evil creatures.”

“Is it named after the
archangel?”

“Yes,” answered Barlow,
pleasantly surprised. “You have heard of him.”

“I studied more than fighting.
The religious beliefs of many are known to me, at least to some extent. I do
not profess to be an expert.”

“I’m afraid I must confess
ignorance to Ashtalon and Thellas. Are these beings in elven lore?”

“No,” Uesra replied with a
shake of her head. “Elvish words, actually. They mean ‘striker’ and ‘defender.’
Not very creative when stated as such, but they are apt.”

“That they are,” Barlow
agreed.

Silas glanced back at Xanar,
who was at the rear of their little band with Darius. “What about your weapon?”
he asked. “What do you call it?”

Xanar thumped his chest twice
with a fist, while holding the bow aloft with his other hand. “I call it…Bow!”

Silas shook his head while
Adrianna and Uesra groaned and Darius stifled a laugh.

“I thought to ask the same
thing,” Barlow told Silas. "But I’ve learned better.”

*

Landri was furious. He paced
his throne room like an angry tiger in a cage, muttering to himself. Various
objects were strewn about the room, objects he had cast to the ground or thrown
at his advisors in a rage. He ordered everyone out, an order that did not need
to be repeated. Everyone left gladly, wanting to be away from this storming
maniac.

Landri tried to calm himself. He
could feel his heart hammering in his chest, could feel the tightening
sensation coming on, like a great hand was starting to squeeze the life from
him. He tried to sit on his throne, missed, and ended up on the floor.

He managed to settle himself
somewhat with a dozen deep breaths, although he could feel the cold sweat
running down his face now. He closed his eyes and tried to think, to penetrate
the black fog that came over him when he lost control, either of himself or of
events. He should have realized it was the latter that usually led to the
former, but was too stubborn to face it, too spoiled by a life where so much he
had not earned had been given to him. His thoughts swirled around one thing,
one name: Kaelesh.

Landri was not so naïve as to
think Kaelesh’s priority was always Landri’s welfare. Landri had always
understood he should take Kaelesh’s advice with a grain of salt, to keep his
own council, but he had rarely done other than what Kaelesh had advised him to
do. Had told him to do. In his darkest times, like now, he often wondered who
was really the master.

Kaelesh had been absent a
great deal of late, and was openly evasive about what he was doing. Whether the
reports from Dalusia were in any way connected to Kaelesh was open to debate,
but now that Landri’s internal fires had been stoked, he decided that even if
Kaelesh wasn’t involved in what had happened, he surely knew of it. Kaelesh
seemed to know everything,