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Where eight Valenar could go, more could surely follow.

Clenching her teeth, Ekhaas threw herself across the hilltop. Uukam and Biiri shifted instantly to protect their own backs. Four elves still faced them. One went after Ekhaas and hooked her foot with his. Ekhaas sprawled face first into grass and dirt. The impact knocked the wind out of her, but she forced herself to roll.

A scimitar gouged the soil a handspan behind her. She kicked blindly and felt her boot connect. The elf staggered back. Ekhaas got up on her hands and knees and scuttled to look over the back edge of the hill.

Six more of the Valaes Tairn were climbing the slope, two covering the ascent with arrows nocked. One swung his bow toward her. Ekhaas sucked air into her lungs, swept her free hand through the air, and forced out a thin, liquid song. The ground beneath and around the elves turned dark and shiny as greased leather. Their feet slipped out from under them, and they went tumbling back down the hill in a flurry of robes, scimitars, and wildly-loosed arrows. Ekhaas grinned—

—and pain like fire seared down her back with a force that knocked her to the ground. Gasping, she twisted. The Valenar she had kicked stood over her, raising his scimitar for another strike. Ekhaas kicked again, but he avoided her easily this time and shifted to get a better blow.

His foot came down on the pipes dropped by the slain piper. The sagging leopard skin bag collapsed under his heel and the pipes released one final startling bleat of sound. The elf leaped in surprise. Ekhaas pushed herself away from the edge of the hill and back to her feet. She could feel blood running down her back underneath the leather armor. Her back burned with every movement, but she could still raise her sword. The elf moved around her, picking the moment of his next attack.

“Ekhaas! With us!” shouted Biiri. From the corner of her eye, she saw him cut down one of the Valenar who menaced him and Uukam, just as Uukam struck out with his shield, forcing back the other two elves. The two soldiers turned as one, offering her a chance to reach their side.

Ekhaas took it. She feinted at the elf, then dodged past him to join Biiri and Uukam. Three hobgoblins fighting together now—but four elves circling them, death in the eyes that shone above red veils.

“We’ll force an opening,” Uukam rasped, his voice thick with exertion. “You run. Get to the woods.”

Fierce determination rose from Ekhaas’s gut up into her throat. Her ears stiffened. There would be no escape through the woods, but she also felt no desire to flee. Eight Valenar had taken them by surprise and they had still brought half of them down. They could take the other four. They would take the other four. “No!” she spat. “No running. We fight! We fight as the Dhakaani fought! We fight and win!”

Her voice rose in a song, harsh and martial, a song she’d heard Dagii’s soldiers chanting as they marched to the devastated clanhold of Tii’ator. It was no spell, but she wove magic into it, invoking the ferocity and discipline of an entire army prepared for battle. Biiri and Uukam stood straight as the song caught them up. New strength seemed to enter their arms, and Ekhaas’s as well. Her grip on her sword grew steady; the throbbing pain of her wounded back grew distant.

The Valaes Tairn appeared to feel the song, too. They glanced at each other, scimitars wavering slightly. Then one of them cried out in Elven, “For the glory of Kaelan!” and leaped forward.

Biiri’s shield snapped up to catch the falling scimitar—and Uukam’s sword cut beneath to tear open the elf’s belly. Without even a pause, he swung himself over the falling body, slicing with the lower lip of his shield at the next Valenar. The elf ducked under the sudden blow, only to meet Biiri’s rising sword. Ekhaas stayed with them, her back to theirs. The two remaining elves shouted and plunged at her as if to end the song. She dropped down and struck back in a low, wide arc. They moved like dancers, evading her sweep