She yanked the blade out of the body as it toppled over, but she had no time to watch what happened to it. The remaining two draconians pressed their attack harder, and in the dark it was difficult to see, to watch the enemy’s face and muscles and look for the subtle clues that often gave away his next move.
Behind her she heard Sir Hugh gasping as he swung his long sword at the bigger draconian. He sounded tired, and she knew she was wearing down fast. At least they were fighting only two draconians now. She parried a wild thrust and jabbed with her poniard at the creature’s midsection. It snarled and deflected the blow with its buckler.
All at once it paused, its long nose sniffing the air. “You!” The baaz hissed. “You are the one! The woman with the bounty. Vorth! This is the one the Brutes seek!”
The second and larger draconian hissed in glee. Giving his large wings a powerful flap, he leaped up and came crashing down to smash Sir Hugh into the rocky riverbank. Linsha could not look. She had her hands too full to help. The first draconian, seeing steel coins in his mind, switched from trying to kill her to trying to disable her. Her came at her using his buckler like a ram to push past her blades and shove her backwards. She tried to get a point under his guard, but his larger size and weight bore her back. She banged into Sir Hugh behind her, twisted to get out of his way, and tripped over something hard in the dark. Her foot caught on the thing and she fell over it, landing on her right arm and side. Pain ripped up her ankle and through her back. Her elbow hit a rock so hard her entire arm went numb, and her sword fell out of her nerveless fingers. By sheer force of will she kept a grip on the poniard and made her body relax over the uneven lump she realized was the first dead baaz. It was a terrible gamble, but she hoped greed would overcome bloodlust in her attacker.
The draconian hooted with derision. Lurching over her, he grabbed her hair and yanked her head up to see if she was still alive.
As fast as a Tarmak, Linsha pulled back her good arm and rammed the poniard through the joints of the old armor into the draconian’s gut. Hot blood spilled over her hand. The creature screeched and tried to pull away, but the point of the long dagger slid up through a lung and hit an artery. In moments, the baaz’s heart failed.
Although Linsha tried to pull the weapon out of the dying creature, she wasn’t fast enough. It toppled over her, ripping the handle out of her hand, died, and, like every one of its kind, its body promptly turned to stone. Linsha’s weapon became trapped in a petrified statue.
Pinned between the two dead draconians, Linsha struggled to free herself, then fell back panting for air and feeling nauseous from the pain. The stone body that held her down was too heavy for her to move alone. She either needed help or an hour’s worth of patience to wait until the draconians’ bodies crumbled to dust. Frantic for Hugh, she squirmed around to see him. What if he was dead already? But when she finally worked her upper body into a place where she could catch sight of him, she paused, taken with surprise.
Hugh had fought off the bozak’s air attack and had disarmed him. He had lost his own sword as well, and as Linsha watched, the two opponents went after each other with tooth and bare fist. Bozaks were known to be dirty fighters, but she was astonished to see Sir Hugh fought dirty as well—with head, teeth, elbows, fists, knees, and feet. He used moves the trainers never taught Solamnic Knights. Kicking and punching, he slowly drove the draconian away from Linsha and away from the fallen swords.
The bozak looked wildly over his shoulder for help, but there was none. The riverbank was black around them and apparently empty.
In that second of inattention, Sir Hugh slipped a foot under the scimitar, kicked it upward, and caught the grip with his hand. He brought it around in a vicious arc that took the draconian’s head off at the shoulders. The head bounced once and rolled to the water’s edge.
“Get down, Hugh!” Linsha shouted.
The Knight dove for cover behind the rock just as the skin on the bozak began to crumble. Unlike the baaz which turned to stone and eventually disintegrated, dead bozaks swiftly deteriorated into skeletons which a minute later exploded in a hail of shrapnel and bone fragments. Linsha threw an arm over her face just as the dead draconian blew apart. Shards of bone whizzed over her head.
There was a polite smattering of applause from the top of the bank.
Linsha and Hugh looked up to see four figures standing on the bank watching them. Someone had built up the campfire, and it illuminated the watchers from behind in a yellow glow. All four held swords and one carried a loaded crossbow. Linsha sagged back with a groan. In all the rush of battle, she had forgotten about the camp.
“Well done, Sir Hugh!” Falaius called. “I see you have taken care of things down there. Is Linsha injured?”
“I don’t know,” she answered for him. “If someone would help me get this blasted draconian off—”
Mariana sprang lightly down the bank, and with Linsha’s help from underneath and the aid of Sir Hugh’s strong arms, they lifted the heavy stone baaz off Linsha and heaved it aside.
With a grin Sir Hugh pulled Linsha to her feet. As she came upright, she tried to put her weight on both feet and was immediately reminded of her injured ankle. The damaged joint refused to hold her. She gasped and fell forward against Hugh’s chest. His arms automatically went around her, and they clasped each other close. She wondered briefly if she should pull away, then he looked into her eyes and in the same breath they started laughing in relief and in the pleasure of being alive.
Mariana studied them both for a minute in her cool, detached way and rubbed the sweat from her face. “Linsha, go soak your ankle in the cold water for a while until I can attend you. Sir Hugh, stay with her and try to wash some of the blood off so I can see to your injuries.”
“What of the others?” Linsha asked.
“They’re alive. Your warning alerted us in time. Most of our attackers were human and not skilled. Falaius thinks they were just bandits. You had the greater number of draconians.”
“Just lucky I guess,” Sir Hugh said, still holding Linsha and still grinning like a lunatic.
Mariana raised an elegant eyebrow. She had seen this reaction before. People sometimes felt drunk after a mortal battle. “Fine. I have a few other people to attend to, then I’ll be back.” She strode up the hill into the firelight.
Sir Hugh’s head dropped to Linsha’s shoulder. “Is she gone yet?” he groaned. At her reply his whole body seemed to sag into her arms.
By fits and starts and careful hops, Linsha and Hugh worked their way over to a grassy patch by the water’s edge and collapsed side by side.
“By Helm’s sword, Hugh, where did you learn to fight like that?” Linsha said while she pulled off her boot.
He splashed water over his hands and face and pulled off his padded jacket to make a pillow for them both. “The streets of Palanthas,” he replied, stretching out on the grass beside her. “I used to run with a gang before the Knights saved me.” His voice dropped as his energy seemed to be draining away. “Thank you for saving me.”
Linsha sank her ankle in the cold flowing water. She lay back and closed her eyes. “I still owe you, Hugh.”
Her ankle was cold, her entire body hurt, and the grass was chilly beneath her. But the exuberance of relief was gone and in its place flowed unadulterated exhaustion.
“Linsha?”
“Hmmm?”
“Who is Ian?”
“He’s dead, Hugh.”
“Oh.”
The last word was barely a sigh.
Mariana came back half an hour later and found them both asleep in the grass. She propped her torch up between several stones and moved among them to check their condition. Except for the old bruise on her face, Linsha looked well enough. She slept peacefully and barely moved when the half-elf lifted her ankle from the water and shifted her back enough to rest her foot on the land. The ankle looked bruised and a little swollen, but it was not broken, and the cold water had helped. Mariana wrapped it tightly and left her friend to sleep.