Asayaga swallowed hard and kept going. The fort was now less than a hundred paces away: he was coming into easy arrowshot range. The gate was off its hinges, the inside of the compound visible, bodies littered the interior. Several vultures were perched on the expansive stomach of one of the dead.
Perhaps the fort was abandoned after all?
And yet …
He slowed. Something wasn’t right. The vultures, they weren’t eating, they had stopped and were looking not towards him but instead at something within the fort that he couldn’t see.
He stopped, and his hand went to the hilt of his sword.
Two things happened at nearly the same instant. The vultures, startled by something he couldn’t see inside the fort flapped their wings, croaking obscenely, struggling to lift into the air: and a shout of warning came from behind. It was Tasemu.
‘It’s a trap!’ Asayaga roared.
For the first few seconds he thought to rush the fort, but even as the vultures lifted off he knew someone was inside and if there was someone inside the smoking ruins of the barracks it meant there was most likely many of them, ready to hold the gate and riddle a charge with arrows.
He turned and sprinted back towards his men. Tasemu was standing out in the open, arms up, pointing back up the trail they had just come down.
‘Behind us!’ Tasemu cried, ‘The Forest Demons are coming!’
Asayaga stopped half-way between the fort and the edge of the clearing.
Damn them! We walked straight into it. It was clear what would happen. Already Sugama was ordering the men to rush the fort and take refuge.
No! That’s what the enemy want! They’ll block the gate: then we get caught in the open and shot full of arrows.
He had to think. He looked back at the fort. It had been but a dozen heartbeats since he had turned back from it. The vultures were barely clear of the gate, wings flapping. The shelter of it looked inviting: too inviting.
His men were streaming out of the woods, running hard, Sugama in the lead. Then one of the men, just barely out of the forest, collapsed, blood fountaining, an arrow driven through his throat.
Sugama came on quickly.
‘Hundreds of them!’ he shouted, his voice edged with panic.
In spite of the chaos Asayaga could not suppress a grin. They might all die in the next few minutes, but it was good to see Sugama get a taste of the reality of this world first.
Asayaga waved his sword over his head as a rallying signal.
When the men were less than ten yards off he pointed away from the fort to the north-west corner of the clearing.
‘Not the fort! Trap! Follow me!’
Sugama slowed for an instant, startled, as an arrow slashed past him. Then he turned to follow Asayaga.
Asayaga set off at a run. He had barely gone a dozen paces when he heard the blast of a horn echoing from the woods to the south. It was answered by another from within the fort!
He ran. The gate was no longer in view, and the west wall of the fort was now to his right and a hundred paces off. He led his column straight up the clearing, trying to keep an equal distance between the fort in the centre and the woods. An arrow skimmed past, kicking up a slushy spray of snow. He spared a quick glance at the fort. Dark forms lined the wall, bows raised. It was the Forest Demons, their distinctive visage clearly visible. Never had he seen so many of them and at such close quarters; before it had always been a furtive glance, a half-seeing as they drifted nightmarelike through the woods.
Asayaga had scouted this place several times over the last year and knew its layout. At the north-west corner a trail entered the clearing, leading to a fort taken by his command in the spring. It was four leagues to that place.
It would most likely be covered but it had to be tried. The east was Kingdom territory and impenetrable marshy ground for several leagues, a death trap. Straight north was the route to the realm of the Forest Demons, rocky game trails through high passes, a death trap as well.
Asayaga headed for the trail that might be either a trap, or a path to safety and then he saw someone stagger out from the trail clutching his chest, blood pulsing from between his clutching fingers. Stunned, he slowed to a stop as the dying person looked at him with blank eyes and then collapsed.
He stopped, not sure for an instant what to do next. He looked to his left, directly into the woods. Perhaps it was better to go that way rather than take the trail, for obviously something was covering that trail.
He started to run again, and his men following. Within seconds they were closing on the edge of the clearing and then a shower of arrows snapped out from the treeline, dropping half a dozen of his men.
Asayaga, sword held high, charged for the woods, praying that he could take one of his tormentors with him.
Dennis Hartraft stared into the eye of the archer poised not fifty paces away. The dark elf had his bow fully drawn and aimed. Remarkably, though, the moredhel had cracked a frozen branch when he stepped out from behind the tree to shoot – he must have been a relative youngster to make so basic a blunder.
It was, at best, a second of time since Dennis had heard that crack.
Time distorted and slowed; he saw the tips of the fingers relaxing, releasing the taut bowstring. Pushing off from the tree, he kicked backwards, eyes still fixed on his stalker. He saw the snap of mist breaking away from the bowstring, the blur of the arrow, the stinging brush of the feathers as the shaft creased his face.
He hit the ground, rolled across the trail, slammed up against a boulder. Two seconds, maybe three, had passed. He was on his feet, saw the elf flinging back his cloak, exposing a quiver.
Instinct drove him forward. In a single bound he vaulted the narrow stream, landed hard, slipping on the icy slope, then started up the rise, reaching for the dagger at his belt. The moredhel had the arrow drawn from the quiver, was reversing it, fitting the nock to the string.
Dennis sprinted forward, lost his footing on an ice-covered boulder, slipped and fell, nearly dropping his dagger, and came back up to his feet. The dark elf was drawing his bow and he knew he had lost the race.
Snakelike he lashed out with an underhand throw of the dagger. The spin was off, the dagger striking the elf in the chest, hilt first. But the impact startled him, he lost his grip on the bowstring and the arrow snapped off, missing Dennis.
Dennis leapt forward even as the dark elf dropped his bow and reached for his own dagger. Dennis dived in, catching the moredhel in the chest with his right shoulder. The pain to his old wound shocked him but he heard his foe grunt as well as the wind got knocked out of him.
The two fell together in a tangled heap, Dennis clutching at the dark elf’s arm, preventing him from drawing his blade. They grappled, rolling on the ground. The moredhel attempted to cry out; Dennis clamped his hand over his mouth. The moredhel bit down and Dennis clamped his jaws together to cut off his own cry of pain.
The two rolled back and forth on the slushy ground, kicking and clawing in a primal fight for survival. He caught a glimpse of his foe’s eyes – so strange, so like Tinuva’s, yet different, filled with fury and murderous rage.
As if from a great distance he heard shouts, but all his world was now focused on the dark elf, who writhed like an enraged serpent as he sought to escape. They rolled again, Dennis on top, faces only inches apart. The moredhel head-butted Dennis in the face. The blow stunned Dennis, blurring his vision.
They rolled down the slope and crashed into the icy creek. Dennis lost his grip and felt the moredhel break free of his grasp and draw his dagger. The moredhel’s arm snapped