“The sword!” Tanalasta urged, pointing at the ground.
Rowen cursed, and she looked down to discover that the iron sword was gone.
The ghazneth spun on them, spreading its wings wide to sweep its attackers off their feet as it turned. Alusair dropped out of the buckeye’s tangled umbrella, bringing the iron sword down toward the phantom’s skull. Her foot brushed one of its wings on the way down, and that was all the warning the thing needed. It slipped its head to one side, and the rust-coated blade slid down the side of its skull, slashing off an ear and biting deep into its collarbone.
The ghazneth roared in pain and used its good arm to slap Alusair off its back, then spun to finish her off. Tanalasta summoned her magic bolt spell to mind, but Rowen was already clutching the tip of their broken lance and hurling himself at the beast’s back.
The ranger struck at a full sprint, driving the dagger through a leathery wing and pinning it to the ghazneth’s back. The phantom roared and spun to face him, and then Alusair was behind it with the iron sword again, shredding its wings and hacking deep, oozing slashes into its legs. The ghazneth spun again, but this time it merely swatted the armored princess aside and hobbled through the gate as fast as a lightning bolt.
Tanalasta rushed to her sister’s side. Alusair lay sprawled on the face of a dirt mound, both eyes closed and breathing in quick, faint rasps.
Tanalasta kneeled and cradled her sister’s head in her lap. “Alusair! Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
“Of course I’m hurt! You ever been hit by one of those things?” Alusair opened one brown eye and glared at Tanalasta. “And what in the Nine Hells are you doing here? This is no place for a crown princess!”
Seeing that her little sister would be fine, Tanalasta smiled and said, “No, Alusair, it’s not.”
14
The Royal Excursionary Company emerged from the timeless murk with a crackle like lightning, then sat swaying in their saddles, stomachs rolling and heads spinning with teleport afterdaze. Slowly, darkness gave way to dun-colored light, and the warped sycamore appeared on the barren hillside ahead. A hot wind began to stipple them with brown moorlands dust, and the silence gave way to clattering and snorting, and stoop-shouldered silhouettes started to come into focus all around.
Something sharp struck Vangerdahast’s ribs and bounced off his magic shield without causing harm, then the horses began to scream.
“Swiners!” Vangerdahast yelled, finally coming out of his afterdaze. “Ambush!”
A streak of swooping darkness came down from his right and caught him by the arm, jerking him from the saddle and lifting him high off the ground. He glimpsed his excursionary company below, fifty mighty war wizards backed by two hundred Purple Dragons, mingled in with a horde of shrieking, startled swiners. Vangerdahast cursed. Though they had foreseen the reception committee, no one had expected to teleport into the very heart of an orc tribe.
Vangerdahast drew a small lead ball from his sleeve pocket and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, uttering a swift incantation. His body grew silvery and heavy. The ghazneth cried out in surprise and plunged toward the ground, its wings hammering the air in a futile attempt to keep the wizard aloft. Vangerdahast twisted around to clutch hold of its arm, though not because he feared being dropped and crashing into the ground. Like everyone else in the company, he had been magically shielded against any form of blow or cut before leaving Arabel. He was grabbing the phantom because of the mad bloodlust that had come over him the moment he glimpsed the thing-the same bloodlust he had experienced the first time he saw it. He wanted to drag it down to the ground and draw his iron dagger and slash the wicked creature into black ribbons.
As Vangerdahast expected when he looked up, he found himself staring into the haggish visage of the first ghazneth he had encountered. The thing was snarling down at him with flared nostrils and bare yellow fangs, its red-tinged eyes bulging with strain and hatred. Vangerdahast glimpsed the edge of the battle less than twenty feet below and pulled his black, cold-forged dagger from its belt sheath, and the phantom finally seemed to realize the hopelessness of its struggle. Hissing angrily, it opened its talons and let the wizard drop free.
In his mad battle fury, Vangerdahast could think of nothing but finishing the thing. He continued to hold onto its wrist-then yelled in agony as the full burden of his magical weight shifted to his own arm and jerked the shoulder out of its socket. His hand opened of its own accord, then he slammed to the ground and went tumbling backward across the rocks.
Even as he rolled, Vangerdahast heard the throb of a dozen bowstrings and glimpsed a flurry of dark shafts streak past above his head. The ghazneth shrieked, and the wizard knew at least one of the iron-tipped shafts had found its mark. On the next revolution, he jammed his feet into the ground and managed to bring his somersaulting to a stop, then tried to rise and found his body too heavy to lift.
Vangerdahast canceled the heaviness spell with a thought, then staggered to his feet still clutching his iron dagger. The ghazneth was already a hundred feet away, climbing back into the sky and banking northward, the shafts of half a dozen arrows dangling from its breast.
A pair of spear points slammed into Vangerdahast’s back, knocking him off his feet and driving him back to the ground. Though the spears could not penetrate his magic armor, the fall did cause his separated shoulder to erupt in pain. He cursed loudly, then dropped his dagger and thrust his good hand into his weathercloak, feeling for his thickest war wand.
Seeing that their first attack had not pierced the wizard’s woolen cloak, the orcs jammed their spear tips into his back again. A fresh wave of agony shot through Vangerdahast’s shoulder.
“Stupid swiners!” He rolled onto his back, slamming his heel into the first warrior’s knee and sweeping it off its feet. “Any kobold can see spears won’t work!”
Vangerdahast leveled his wand and a thread of golden light lanced out to pierce the orc’s chest. The creature dropped its spear, reached for its heart, and erupted into a crimson spray. The wizard turned away from the gory shower, then felt a pair of talons raking at his knees. He looked back to find the second swiner clawing its way up his legs, tusks gnashing and beady eyes burning with blood-hunger.
Vangerdahast raised his brow at the uncharacteristic display of courage, then leveled his wand at the orc’s forehead. The rabid creature did not even cringe as the golden thread of light lanced out to blast its skull apart. The wizard pushed the headless corpse from his lap and leaped to his feet. A swiner scrambled past, its crooked spear braced for the attack. Vangerdahast leveled his wand, then was surprised to hear himself shouting in glee as its magic reduced the warrior to flying pieces.
A loud rumble sounded behind him. He turned toward the sound and found himself looking into the heart of the battle, where a web of flashing thunderbolts and glimmering death rays was littering the ground with smoking swiner corpses. The orcs, of course, could cause little harm against the might of magic. Their stone spear points shattered against the impenetrable armor of the Purple Dragons, their soft swords bent against the enchanted wool of the war wizards’ weathercloaks, and their claws snapped against the magic-shielded flanks of the snorting war-horses. The Royal Excursionary Company countered with good Connyrean steel and well-chosen spells, and orcs fell by the dozen. One dragoneer lopped the heads off three foes in a row, only to be outdone an instant later when a fireball reduced half a dozen swiners to charred bits of bone.