"After him!" shouted Ariakas. He seized the squirm shy;ing Tale Splintersteel by the scruff of his collar and pushed him down the ridge. The merchant dwarf slipped and bounced, but kept his feet as he plunged after the careening Ferros Windchisel.
The human warrior brought up the rear, taking long strides to keep up with the dwarves. After five steps Ari shy;akas stopped, planted his feet, and whirled to face upward. A half-dozen shrieking Zhakar rushed in pur shy;suit along the steep gully. The first of these leapt at Aria shy;kas, and he knocked the dwarf to his right with a sweeping blow of his sword. He bashed the second one on his backswing and repeated the maneuver back and forth until all six, gouged and bleeding, had been sent rolling down the ridge.
Turning in the momentary lull, Ariakas plunged downward again, nearly losing his balance as the gully floor dropped through a steplike progression of three-foot cliffs. A Zhakar leapt at him from the right, and he chopped the dwarf almost in two, barely breaking stride. Another one rushed to the left edge of the ravine, but then ducked away when he raised the sword.
Ferros Windchisel finally arrested the momentum of his slide, though not before he had reached Lyrelee's motionless body. His rapid descent had carried him through the bulk of the attacking Zhakar. Tale Splinter-steel joined them a moment later, and finally Ariakas reached the group. The Zhakar pursuers, for the moment, had been left behind and above them-though several skipped nimbly down the slope, closing fast. Again crossbow bolts bombarded them, but here the gully walls rose high and the runty dwarves could not find clear targets.
Ariakas saw with relief that the priestess was alive. Lyrelee's eyes were opened, and her parted lips revealed tightly clenched teeth. Her chest rose and fell rapidly from the staccato beat of her gasping breaths.
"Look out!" warned Ferros, and Ariakas looked upward in time to hack a charging Zhakar and drive back two more with lightning slashes of the crimson blade.
"Come on-let's run!" cried Tale Splintersteel, starting to lunge past Ferros and flee down the ridge.
Ariakas again grasped the Zhakar by the scruff of his neck, jerking him back none too gently. He bent down shy;ward, confronting the terrified eyes behind the cloak with his own grimly determined glare.
"Help her!" he snarled, releasing Splintersteel.
"Your sword!" begged the Zhakar. "Use it! Kill them!"
Angrily Ariakas shook off the suggestion. The attack shy;ers were still too scattered for him to slay more than a few, and he wasn't about to squander the precious power.
Lyrelee, still unspeaking, sat up; her face was pale and her eyes were dim, unfocused. Tale Splintersteel, mutter shy;ing, reached for her arm and roughly helped her to her feet.
Now several Zhakar closed in from each side. Ferros and Ariakas did their best to hold them at bay while Tale and Lyrelee hobbled slowly down the gully. The moun shy;tain dwarf's axe blade was spattered with blood and bits of Zhakar robes, and streams of sweat ran down his bearded face while he whirled to face each new attack.
Ariakas maintained his position as rear guard, where an increasing number of the attackers came at him. Soon the companions had dropped well below the area of the ambush, and Ferros-freed of the necessity to hack his way through dwarves-aided Tale in helping Lyrelee. Their pace picked up considerably, Ariakas falling back to hold the pursuing dwarves at bay.
The Zhakar displayed a healthy respect for his crim shy;son blade, gradually becoming reluctant to press close. They held back, launching bolts from their crossbows whenever Ariakas turned to hurry after his companions. One of these stuck him in the shoulder, inflicting a painful wound, and when he spun to do battle, another missile lodged in his breastplate.
Numerous dwarven bodies littered the bottom and sides of the ravine, and many other dwarves moaned piteously where they had fallen. A number of these had been injured when tumbling down the rocky slope, so that all told the ranks of the attackers had been sorely depleted.
Still, by the time they reached the bottom of the long slope, Ariakas could see many dozens of the stunted dwarves creeping down the ridge in their wake. A desul shy;tory rain of crossbow quarrels arced downward, and one of these scraped the Hylar's hand, producing a growl of anger from Ferros. Still, the barrage lacked the intensity of the opening volley, and the companions broke from the shelter of the ravine across the narrow valley floor.
A thin stream splashed through the steep-sided vale at the foot of the ridge, while another slope-it could have been a mirror image of the incline they had just descended -stretched toward the sky beyond the brook.
Lyrelee, leaning between the two dwarves, limped toward the streambank, while Ariakas kept his attention riveted on the dwarves above. The Zhakar hastened for shy;ward, but now they were too far back to catch the group before the waterway.
At the edge of the water, Tale Splintersteel stopped, though Ferros and Lyrelee stepped right into the stream. The channel was barely two feet deep, which would have been no higher than his chest, but the Zhakar mer shy;chant dug in his heels. The attackers surged forward, so Ariakas planted a firm kick in his companion's backside, flinging Tale far from shore before the cursing dwarf splashed into the water.
Ariakas waded after, fetching the spluttering figure up from the current, surprised to see Splintersteel quivering in terror. Desperately the dwarf clutched at the warrior's waist, and in disgust Ariakas carried the wretched figure the few steps to the far side of the stream. Ferros and Lyrelee had already emerged, and the dwarf helped the priestess stumble away from the shore. The Hylar's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as Ariakas tossed the dripping Zhakar onto the bank.
Once out of bow range, the party looked back at their pursuers, gathering along the bank. Ferros Windchisel spoke to the bedraggled Tale Splintersteel.
"Do all of you hate the water so much?"
Still muttering, the dwarf gave a surly nod.
"We might have bought ourselves some time," Ferros noted with an appreciative look at the stream. Several slick rocks broke the surface, but anyone trying to cross without getting wet would be in for a real challenge.
They continued away from the stream and toward a steep gully leading up. In moments they had climbed beyond arrow range from the valley floor. Tale Splinter-steel's teeth chattered, and he shivered uncontrollably- altogether the picture of extreme misery. True to the companions' deduction, the pursuing Zhakar reached the banks of the stream and began to curse and catcall after them, but made no attempt to wade across.
One of the Zhakar jumped to a rock in the stream, perching awkwardly on the rounded top. When he tried leaping to the next intended stepping stone, however, he slipped and plunged into the water. Shrieking in pain or horror, he frantically splashed back to the shore and crawled out.
Lyrelee groaned and sagged to the ground.
"Keep an eye on that bunch!" Ariakas warned the dwarves, kneeling beside her. The priestess closed her eyes, wincing in pain, and Ariakas saw that the arrow penetrating her side had been jostled and wrenched in its wound. Lyrelee's breathing was shallow, her color pallid.
The man felt a burning determination-she would not die! Yet only with the aid of his goddess could he hope to help her.
Everything else vanished into the background as Aria shy;kas remembered his training in the temple. "Takhisis, mighty Queen of Darkness," he uttered softly, "summon forth the healing strength of my faith, and bring it to bear against this woman's hurts!"
He felt the power of the goddess thrumming through his limbs, and-with hands that felt almost detached, as if they belonged to someone else-he first touched the shaft embedded in the wound, and then, very gently, removed it. Lyrelee's eyes flashed open, and she placed a hand over his, drawing strength from the power of the man and the Dark Queen.