With a gurgling cry the moredhel staggered to his feet and started to run, blood pulsing out. Dennis gasped for breath and caught a glimpse of Tinuva standing up on the trail, already drawing a second arrow, tracking the moredhel, but then held his shot as the Dark Brother staggered into the clearing.
Tinuva relaxed his grip on his bow and looked down at Dennis.
‘Move now!’ Tinuva hissed.
Dennis, his heart pounding, shoulder aching, came to his feet and started up the slope to Tinuva’s side.
‘Trap, we’re in a trap!’ Tinuva announced.
As he gained the trail he caught a glimpse of the dying moredhel collapsing and confronting him, the column of Tsurani. There had been only one Tsurani, and now there was near on a hundred and he realized that his struggle with the moredhel must have dragged out for several dangerously long minutes.
Too much was happening too quickly and he leaned over, gasping for breath. The shock of his fight and near death was having its impact and he fought down an urge to vomit. Tinuva grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back off the trail.
‘The moredhel net is wide,’ Tinuva said quickly. ‘They are waiting on the trail, two hundred yards from here. Ambush prepared. ‘They didn’t know we were near and the one you killed was one of their flanking scouts. They will find us in a few minutes, crossing the trail we made in the snow. Gregory sent me back to tell you.’
At that same instant he saw that the Tsurani were turning, shying away from the trail and heading straight into the woods in the direction where his own men were concealed. The move triggered a response: a shower of arrows snapped out from the forest.
Damn! Now we are revealed.
He sprinted up the slope, Tinuva bounding forward by his side. Ground that had taken minutes to cover before he crossed in seconds. He caught a glimpse of Alwin Barry and a dozen of his men poised around the boulders firing down on the Tsurani. Several of the Tsurani had their alien short-bows out and crouching behind the stumps of trees in the clearing, were shooting back.
Horns now echoed all around them. From the east side of the clearing he saw dark-cloaked forms, a hundred or more charging, while others poured out of the fort. More were coming up from the south. It was chaos. He needed to think clearly, but the smashing blow to his head from the dark moredhel still had him stunned. Looking down at the Tsurani he saw one of them barely a hundred feet away charging, sword held high. There was something vaguely familiar about him, an enemy he had faced before.
‘Stop fighting!’
The booming cry echoed through the forest. It was Gregory, running hard, coming through the woods. He leapt onto the boulder they had hidden behind earlier and extended his arms wide so that even the Tsurani in the clearing could see him.
‘Stop fighting! Dark Brothers are closing in!’ Gregory shouted. ‘We settle our differences later!’ Then he said something else and Dennis recognized it as Tsurani. ‘If we fight one another, we die! No honour in throwing our lives away!’
The Tsurani warrior leading the charge slowed, then came to a halt.
Gregory said something else and pointed back across the clearing. ‘Those we call the Dark Brotherhood are upon us in strength.’
The leader turned and looked.
Gregory’s words forced Dennis to focus his attention.
I am in command, he remembered, and he felt a flicker of anger towards Gregory overstepping his bounds yet again, and yet again being right. If we and the Tsurani fight now, we all die. He turned the anger on himself. I should have grasped this immediately; Gregory realized it. Jurgen would have too.
He turned about in a full circle, judging sound, distances, ignoring the Tsurani. He saw a line of horse-mounted warriors emerge from the trail that headed south, one of them holding a banner aloft – human renegades serving with their moredhel masters. Dennis felt his stomach knot; the only time the moredhel hired mercenary cavalry was when they were mounting an offensive; they had no use for humans otherwise.
A dozen or more trolls swarmed about the standard-bearer like dogs about to be unleashed for the hunt. Others on foot were pouring out of the forest from the far side of the clearing.
Main force there, he realized.
From behind, to the west and north-west he heard horns. The blocking force on the trail were spreading out and closing the net. If they delay us even for a few minutes the mounted riders and other fell creatures accompanying them will close in for the kill.
It was obvious they planned for a fleeing force to turn and go up the trail, and straight into their doom.
To the north, nothing, only a few sentries. Arrogant of them: it was the way back to moredhel territory and they had left it open.
North then, it was the only way out!
He looked back to the clearing again, and the Tsurani were already gone, moving rapidly to the north. All he could see were their retreating backs.
Damn them, they were supposed to be the diversion and now he was the diversion instead!
Furious with himself he held a hand up, circled it then snapped it down and set off at a run, his men following.
He bounded back towards the trail to Mad Wayne’s, praying that perhaps the Tsurani had taken that turn and stumbled into the moredhel’s trap.
He hit the edge of the trail and without hesitation jumped down. Within seconds his men were sliding down around him.
He looked down. No Tsurani tracks.
Damn! They had slipped out some other way.
A man next to him, Beragorn, was an old veteran. He grunted and turned, clutching at his stomach where an arrow with black feathers quivered.
Out of the mist he saw them coming, half-a-dozen moredhel. More filtering through the trees to either side of the trail. Instinctively he crouched, and an arrow snapped overhead. More men were sliding down onto the trail, turning, ready to fight.
No. In a minute those in the field will close in.
‘Alwin! Block force. Then across creek!’ he shouted. ‘The rest of you, follow me north!’
He hesitated for a second, looking at Beragorn who was down on his knees. He reached for his dagger, to do the task any friend would do for a comrade when the moredhel were closing in.
Damn, his dagger was lost.
He glanced at Beragorn, whose eyes were glazing over as he fell backward against a bole. Taking a breath, Dennis seized the shaft sticking out of Beragorn’s stomach, and with a single push, jammed it up into his old comrade’s heart. The man stiffened and died.
Dennis sprinted off the trail, leaping the creek and running up the slope where he had fought the moredhel sentry.
This time his footing held. He looked back.
The tail end of his command were just now crossing the trail.
Alwin had heard him, calling out half a dozen men who stood to either side of the trail, their first volley of arrows slowing the dark elves’ charge. A couple more men went down from a return volley. He caught a glimpse of Tinuva leaping the stream, landing, turning, bow drawn. He let fly, aiming back towards Brendan’s Stockade. It was a long shot, yet it dropped a horse at the head of the trail, throwing the rider. Gregory sprinted past him, dodging through the trees.
‘Follow Gregory!’ Dennis shouted, pointing the way.
He waited a few more seconds, grabbing the shoulder of a man who started to slip back down the slope, pulling him up and over. It was the priest. He shoved him forward, screaming at him to run. He was about to shout for Alwin to break but the sergeant knew