Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [10]
“We can’t see. We’ve lost two already to their traps. How many more?”
“It wasn’t the darkness that killed them. It was their own stupidity, and the cleverness of these humans. Their leader knows this land. He knows how we fight.”
Sootclaw’s brow rumpled. “You sound as if you admire him.”
“Yes, like the hound admires the fox,” Rytlock said, his eyes flashing. “Fall in! After me! They went this way—south and west.” He grinned in the darkness. “We’ll catch them within the hour.”
“This way!” Logan hissed in the darkness as he ran along the rocky bank of a mountain stream. It was the only sure path through the forest. On all sides, moonlight showed thickets of pine that they couldn’t navigate. Behind them flashed glints of horn or fang or steel.
The charr were converging.
Logan and his scouts pelted along the stream, fighting to keep their footing on water-smoothed stones. They were bunched tight, prey running from predators.
The stream dropped away before him in a sudden waterfall.
“Hold up! Hold up!” warned Logan.
The other scouts halted behind him, stopping just on the brink.
“How far down?” asked Wescott.
Logan kicked a stone over the edge and counted to five before he heard it hit. “Too far.”
“What now?”
Logan smiled grimly. “Now we wade the stream and find another way.”
“They’re closing,” Everlee noted.
“Yes, they are,” Logan replied. “We’ve killed two or three, but their leader is a wily one. We’ll kill a few more before they corner us. Come on.”
He stepped into the frigid stream. Water rose to his knees and hips before it grew shallower. Sodden and shivering, Logan and his team rushed up the far bank and away into the darkness.
But there was no stream to guide them now, and little moonlight. In minutes, they had blundered into a thicket. Swords came out to hack through. At last, they broke into a high glade and ran beneath the moon.
Behind them, charr blades battered through the thicket.
Logan and his team ran between two stands of pine and into a narrow valley striped with moon shadows. Blindly they rushed forward and into a steep stone wall.
“Find a way out!” growled Logan.
“There’s no way out!” Wescott replied. “A box canyon.”
“Try climbing! Find anything to grab hold of,” commanded Logan.
The scouts fumbled in the darkness along the rock walls.
Then a light dawned—a fiery light. The scouts turned to see a flaming sword sliding from a stone scabbard. The light sketched out a lionish face, grinning with fangs and eyes that smiled red. The charr stalked forward, towering over the man, and thrust his flaming sword high.
Logan pulled his war hammer from his belt and stepped up. “Wedge formation behind me.”
The scouts lifted their weapons and positioned themselves.
The charr with the burning sword spoke. “At last, the rats are cornered.”
Logan flashed a cockeyed smile. “We took out a few of you.”
“And now, we’ll take out all of you,” the charr growled. Around him, more charr warriors marched up, slinging their axe-rifles down and pointing them at the humans. Their leader shouted, “Fire!”
The rifles roared, hurling out a barrage of smoke and lead.
LITTLE PEOPLE, BIG PROJECTS
Hel-looo? Hel-loooo?”
The black dire wolf raised his head from the warm blanket and blinked at the workshop door-way.
No one was there.
“Hel-looo? Heeeel-looooooo?”
Eir shifted on her bed, lifting a tangle of red hair to look toward the door. She didn’t see anyone, either.
The voice spoke again. “Nobody’s home.”
Another voice answered, “Maybe they’re sleeping in.”
“Sleeping in? Are you crazy? The greatest norn artist of her generation isn’t sleeping in.”
“Well, she’s probably working. Famous sculptor and all. She’s probably off carving something.”
“She’s not working. This is her workshop, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” said Eir Stegalkin, rolling out of bed and standing, “and her bedroom.” She looked toward the door and blinked. “Oh, there you are.”
Garm quirked his eyebrows and stood also, seeing at last two little people standing in the doorway. They came up only to the belt of a norn, and they were gray,