Viperhand - Douglas Niles [104]
Again a bolt crackled, and he flinched backward, knowing he couldn't avoid the attack. But then a lithe form stepped before him. The magic arrow struck ErixitI between her breasts, where the pluma token lay against her skin, unseen beneath her dress.
The bolt crumbled into sparks and fell harmlessly tp the ground. The swordsmen paused for a moment as Darien's shrill cry of hatred split the air. Bolt after bolt shot forth, each one popping into nothingness against the Maztican woman. Finally Darien dropped her hand, her spell exhausted. The other attackers closed tentatively.
"Wfe've got to get out of here," Poshtli grunted. "They knew we were coming. Naltecona's too well guarded!"
Sensing the truth of his friend's words, Halloran cursed in frustration. He felt he could go anywhere, attack at any odds, with the pulsating might flowing into his muscles from his pluma wristbands. But he knew this was an illusion. He might be strong and quick, but he was still mortal.
"Come on!" said Erix, starting back toward the concealed door they had used to enter.
Hal and Poshtli fell back beside her, fighting off the approaches of the attackers. Feeling no remorse in the heat of the battle, Hal struck brutally to the right and left, slaying his former comrades as he would kill any foe in any battle. If anything, the presence of ErixitI beside him and the need to protect her drove him to greater heights of savagery than he had ever known.
The door stood open before them. The three guards still slumbered incongruously as the battle raged around them. One of them began to stir as Hal and Erix turned back to the smoldering garden. The legionaires pursued at a safe distance, giving the bone-crunching sweep of Halloran's sword a wide berth.
"Get through-I'll close the door!" Poshtli leaped into the portal, stepping aside so that Hal and Erix could slip past him.
"Go!" Halloran urged Erix, facing outward to hold back the pursuit.
Neither of them saw the groggy legionnaire sit up near the doorway. The effects of the sleep spell melted away as he saw the fight raging before him.
Swiftly the man sprang to his feet and dove into ErixitI, carrying her heavily to the ground. The two rolled away from the doorway, away from Halloran.
"Erix!" he cried, his voice cracking. He leaped after her, seeing other legionnaires reach down, helping their compardon to pull her away.
Dimly he saw Darien raise her hand, her spell a sharp bark of sound amid the chaos in the garden. Erixitl disappeared before Halloran as he crashed into a wall of stone-a hard granite barrier conjured between him and his wife by the elfmage.
"No!" he raged. Legionnaires swarmed around either side of the wall, blocking his passage with their bodies. The stone barrier towered over his head, extending across half the garden to the right and left. Behind him, he sensed Poshtli at the open door.
With a growl of inarticulate rage, Halloran threw back his fist and smashed it into the wall. His knuckles met the granite with stone-crushing force, and the arcane power of his pluma, coupled with the berserk rage of his own strength, shattered the barrier. Leaping through the wreckage like a wild beast, Halloran saw Erix, firmly grasped by four swordsmen, disappear into one of the compartments.
Blinded by his own fury, Halloran stumbled forward. Swordsmen fell away from his path, knowing their fate if they came within reach of his blows.
Suddenly a dark reality penetrated his frenzy, and he saw a rank of legionnaires standing between him and the place where Erix had disappeared. No swords for these, however-this was a line of Daggrande's heavy crossbows.
Blinking, halting in a desperate attempt to regain his self-control, Halloran stared at the figure of his old companion. The grizzled dwarf stared back, the set of his mouth firm. Only his eyes showed his pain. With deliberate speed, he ordered the crossbows, their steel-headed missiles glinting in the magical light, raised.
Don't make me do it, lad! Halloran read the message in the old dwarfs eyes and knew beyond a doubt