Elfshadow - Elaine Cunningham [46]
The moonblade danced and twinkled as Arilyn slashed at her attackers. Three more lizard men fell, clutching at sliced throats or severed limbs. One of the remaining creatures came in low with a large, upturned knife and a bright idea: attack the horse. Perceiving the monster's intent, Arilyn viciously dug her heels into her horse's side and jerked back the reins. The terrified mare reared, just barely avoiding a slash that would have gutted it.
Arilyn used the momentum of the horse's movement to dismount. Throwing herself backward in a somersault, the agile half-elf rolled out of the saddle and landed on her feet, moonblade in hand. With the flat of her blade she smacked the mare's flanks, hard. The horse fled, dodging the clutching talons of the five still-standing, hungry lizards. The lizard men, robbed of the promise of horseflesh, surrounded Arilyn and closed in.
The half-elf could hear excited squeaks and harsh, high-pitched chattering just outside the tight circle of scales and blades. Wonderful, Arilyn thought with dismay. The goblin hunting party had finally decided to join in. As if she didn't have enough to deal with.
One of the lizard men got through her guard, and the tip of its sword slashed a burning line across her left shoulder. With her next swing Arilyn cut the lizard across the face. Blinded and roaring, the creature pawed at its eyes and reeled away, knocking one of its brothers to the ground in its frenzy. The fallen lizard man thrashed about, struggling to regain its footing on the marshy, blood-slick ground. With a quick jab, the moonblade found its heart, and the monster lay still. Arilyn leaped over it toward the blinded lizard, and quickly ended that beast's suffering.
Now there were but three of the lizard men left. Even tired and wounded, Arilyn felt confident of winning against those odds. She doubted, however, whether she would have the strength at battle's end to wade through a band of goblins.
As she fought, Arilyn heard a strange battle hymn drifting from somewhere on the marsh. It was a bawdy ballad, set to a well-known drinking song, and it was rendered triply incongruous by the refined tone of a well-trained tenor voice:
They're far from staid after a raid
Those men of Zhentil Keep:
They kill off all the women
For they much prefer the sheep.
The Zhents don't eat their ill-got treat;
Not one of them's a glutton.
So isn't it a marvel
That they always smell of mutton?
Blasted human! Arilyn ducked a battle axe and gritted her teeth in annoyance. To her surprise, she found that the foolish song rallied her more effectively than the battle skirl of Moonshae pipes. She fought on, buoyed up by a mixture of relief and irritation. Danilo would get away, and in his own flamboyant fashion.
Unimpressed by the music, the three lizard men pressed in. One of them lunged at her with a dagger. Arilyn knocked the weapon from its claws and darted forward, thrusting the moonblade deep into its reptilian eye and immediately killing it. The creature fell heavily forward, and the half-elf tore her sword free and leaped clear of the toppling corpse.
With a triumphant roar, a huge, brown-scaled lizard man hefted his battle axe and took a mighty swipe at the half-elf's knees. She leaped high to avoid the blade, but on the back-swing the axe's handle caught her and knocked her sideways. Thrown off balance, she flew several feet before she hit the ground hard. She stopped face down beside a steaming, sulphur-scented pool. Arilyn scrambled to her feet. If she had been hurt by the fall, the pain would come later.
The remaining pair of lizards, smelling blood, closed in. Arilyn faced them and crouched in a defensive stance, holding the moonblade before her in a two-handed grip. The sword glowed a brilliant blue in the gathering darkness, lighting the half-elf's grim face and reflecting the cold fire of her eyes. The monsters, expecting