The Floodgate - Elaine Cunningham [29]
Her chin lifted. "I have allies."
"You had better find them, and soon."
She was about to respond when they caught the distant sound of underbrush rustling and a faint, grating snuffle. A boar, Andris noted grimly. In her hunger, Kiva had apparently forgotten that the scent of truffles might lure one of the dangerous beasts.
Kiva's eyes darted toward the sound, then to the ghostly sword on the jordain's hip. "I can help you," Andris said softly as he eased his weapon free.
"With the boar and with other things."
The elf managed a scornful little laugh. "At what price?"
"Tell me how the Cabal can be destroyed."
This Kiva had clearly not expected. She regarded the jordain with curiosity.
"Only idiots and elves believe in the Cabal. You spoke truth when you claimed elf blood?"
Andris noted that she spoke only of race, not of kinship. "Did I speak truth?
Lady, I am a jordain," he said, self-mockery sharp in his eyes.
She let this pass. For the first time she looked at him, and there was something approaching kinship in her amber eyes. "You saw the captured elves of Kilmaruu, you read Akhlaur's journal," she said in a soft but steely voice. "You know who we are and what we must do. So be it."
Andris met the elf woman's eyes and saw there a destiny that encompassed them both. He responded with a grim nod.
There was no time for anything more. The underbrush exploded into a sudden fury of sound and motion. Andris whirled to face the charging beast-an enormous black sow, her belly swinging slack from a recent litter and her red eyes gleaming with desperate knowledge of her piglets' hunger. He judged the creature as nearly half the mass of a war-horse, with thrice the fight and fury.
Kiva touched Andris on the back, just below the shoulder blades. "Here," she said tersely. "Strike hard."
He acknowledged this with a curt nod and then pushed her aside, holding his ground as the wild pig charged in, its snout tucked like a charging bull. At the last moment Andris sidestepped, spun, and drove the sword home.
The blade sank into the hump of fat that was the wild pig's most vulnerable spot. Andris felt the sword grate against ribs before it was wrenched from his grasp. Even so, the great sow took several more steps before she stumbled and went down.
"Careful," the elf cautioned as Andris closed in. "The sow could still gut you with a nod of her head."
The wounded pig managed to get her feet beneath her and a tree at her back. At bay, she swung her massive head as if daring Andris to attack. The jordain stood his ground, battle-poised but patient.
It was not the sow's nature to wait tamely for death. She let out a searing bellow and burst into a charge, heading not for Andris but for the weaponless Kiva.
Andris shouted a warning and sprinted directly through the beast's path, slashing at the pig's sloped forehead. Blood poured freely. Blinded, the creature veered wildly aside.
Andris leaped onto the bristly back and groped for the hilt of the embedded sword, but the pig whirled and bucked, its tusks slashing the air. With each movement the upright sword swayed and danced like a palm tree in a monsoon gale. Andris was battered by the flailing movements of his own sword. Try as he might, he could not get a grip on it without slicing his hand on the blade or losing his hold on the pig.
As the sow frantically pitched and spun, the forest colors blurred into a whirling green haze. Andris was dimly aware of Kiva's shouts, barely audible above the creature's furious squeals and roars, and the thunderous pounding of his own heart. He sensed a dark streak sweeping in at him, felt a bruising blow glance off his shoulder and thud heavily into the sow's ribs.
The wild pig stopped to consider this new threat. Andris focused his spinning vision on the elf woman, who stood with her feet planted wide and a stout length of deadwood in