Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [237]
Before them was an open central staircase.
“Haskeer! Take half the company and clear this floor,” Stryke ordered. “The rest with me!”
Haskeer’s troopers spread right and left. Stryke led his party up the stairs.
They were near the top when a pair of creatures appeared. Stryke and the band cut them to pieces in combined fury. Coilla got to the upper level first and ran into another defender. It opened her arm with a saw-toothed blade. Hardly slowing, she dashed the weapon from its hand and sliced its chest. Howling, it blundered through the rail and plunged to oblivion.
Stryke glanced at Coilla’s streaming wound. She made no complaint, so he turned his attention to this floor’s layout. They were on a long landing with a number of doors. Most were open, revealing apparently empty rooms. He sent troopers to search them. They soon reappeared, shaking their heads.
At the furthest end of the landing was the only closed door. They approached stealthily and positioned themselves outside.
Sounds of combat from the ground floor were already dying down. Shortly, the only noise was the distant, muffled hubbub of the battle on the plain, and the stifled panting of the Wolverines catching their breath as they clustered on the landing.
Stryke glanced from Coilla to Jup, then nodded for the three burliest footsoldiers to act. They shouldered the door once, twice and again. It sprang open and they threw themselves in, weapons raised, Stryke and the other officers close behind.
A creature hefting a double-headed axe confronted them. It went down under manifold blows before doing any harm.
The room was large. At its far end stood two more figures, shielding something. One was of the defending creatures’ race. The other was of Jup’s kind, his short, squat build further emphasised by his companion’s lanky stature.
He came forward, armed with sword and dagger. The Wolverines moved to engage him.
“No!” Jup yelled. “Mine!”
Stryke understood. “Leave them!” he barked.
His troopers lowered their weapons.
The stocky adversaries squared up. For the span of half a dozen heartbeats they stood silently, regarding each other with expressions of vehement loathing.
Then the air rang to the peal of their colliding blades.
Jup set to with a will, batting aside every stroke his opponent delivered, avoiding both weapons with a fluidity born of long experience. In seconds the dagger was sent flying and embedded itself in a floor plank. Soon after, the sword was dashed away.
The Wolverine sergeant finished his opponent with a thrust to the lungs. His foe sank to his knees, toppled forward, twitched convulsively and died.
No longer spellbound by the fight, the last defender brought up its sword and readied itself for a final stand. As it did so, they saw it had been shielding a female of its race. Crouching, strands of mousy hair plastered to its forehead, the female cradled one of their young. The infant, its plump flesh a dawn-tinted colour, was little more than a hatchling.
A shaft jutted from the female’s upper chest. Arrows and a longbow were scattered on the floor. She had been one of the defending archers.
Stryke waved a hand at the Wolverines, motioning them to stay, and walked the length of the room. He saw nothing to fear and didn’t hurry. Skirting the spreading pool of blood seeping from Jup’s dead opponent, he reached the last defender and locked eyes with it.
For a moment it looked as though the creature might speak.
Instead it suddenly lunged, flailing its sword like a mad thing, and with as little accuracy.
Untroubled, Stryke deflected the blade and finished the matter by slashing the creature’s throat, near severing its head.
The blood-soaked female let out a high-pitched wail, part squeak, part keening moan. Stryke had heard something like it once or twice before. He stared at her and saw a trace of defiance in her eyes. But hatred, fear and agony were strongest in her features. All the colour had drained from her face and her