They must have been separated in the chaos.
His throat constricted.No. He drew his stallion up short. He had to go back.
He couldn’t leave them.
A shadow flickered at the edge of his vision—something barreling toward him through the smoke. No, not something;someone.
An Arathian man, impossibly tall and broad, unarmed and coming in fast on foot.
Clenching his jaw, Aldric couched his glaive in the crook of his arm as if it were a lance and spurred Mourn into a canter, riding straight for the Arathian.
But still the man came.
Not slowing, making no attempts to avoid the sharp blade about to slam home.
Crash.
The impact jarred him to the bone, teeth rattling, nearly unseating him as his weapon was wrenched from his grip. But the glaive struck true, sinking deep in the gap where gorget met breastplate, skewering the Arathian through the upper chest.
A triumphant huff rattled from his throat as he circled back around to retrieve the glaive. An easy enough kill. Now all he had to do was wrench the polearm free from a corpse.
Except there was no corpse.
There was merely the Arathian, still standing, staring straight at him through the slit in his helm. Unmoving. Unflinching.
The man should be dead.
Instead, he stood there—impaled and indifferent—as if steel through the chest were nothing more than a passing inconvenience.
Cold dread knifed down Aldric’s spine as he watched the Arathian slowly reach upward, wrap his hand around the glaive’s grip, and begin to pull it free.
Mourn snorted and backed away, but too late.
A crushing blow slammed into Aldric’s right shoulder. Pain exploded down his arm. The world tilted. He didn’t even see what had hit him; all he saw was the ground coming up fast—too fast.
His left shoulder hit first, sending white-hot pain lancing through the joint, sharp enough to blind him all over again. He grunted and rolled to his back, spitting dirt from his mouth.
Another Arathian loomed over him, as inexpressive as the first.
Aldric clawed at his boot, fingers numb, shoulder screaming as he ripped free the dagger hidden there. He didn’t think—just slashed the blade straight across the enemy soldier’s ankle.
Nothing. No reaction. No scream.
Silent, the man advanced. Unyielding, he lunged straight for him.
A black-scaled blur dropped from above with a shriek.Soot. The usuru flapped its wings and struck the Arathian’s face, trying to bite him through his helm.
Aldric took his chance. He scrambled backward, hunting for his glaive, for all the good it seemed to do.
He found it when the first Arathian slammed it through his left hand, pinning him to the ground. More pain exploded up his arm like tongues of flame. Devouring all thought. All strategy.
From far away, he heard someone scream.
Was it him?
“Fool!” a woman’s voice floated through the air toward him. The witch again. “I need the dwarf alive.”
The dwarf. He spat.
