“It’s Isaam’s doing no doubt, this great blaze,” Doleman said.
“Aye, Lieutenant. I’d told him to cast some spells that would trouble the rats.”
“But you didn’t expect this business, eh, Commander?” He forced a smile as he drew his sword over his head, two hands on the pommel, and brought it down hard on the collarbone of a tall, red-skinned goblin. The blade sliced through the flesh and broke the bone. The goblin crumpled and Doleman drove the point through its heart.
“I had not anticipated help to this extent,” she replied wryly.
“Unfortunate the Gray Robe had not thought of this earlier,” Doleman continued. “It would have cut our losses by the bluff.” He tugged his shield free from his back and wielded his sword with one hand.
Bera parried another blow. The goblins in front of her changed the rhythm of their attack, and she used that to her advantage, bringing the sword down on one’s wrist, cleaving through the arm and sending the creature away, howling and holding its blood-spurting stump. While the other goblin glanced at its wounded kinsman, she drove her blade through its throat and brought her heel against its stomach to help free her weapon.
“I did not order Isaam to cast such fire magics then, Lieutenant. At the bluff I was expecting a straight-up battle.” In truth, she hadn’t realized the sorcerer might be capable of such a magnificent gesture. And she had been determined to take the goblins down with brute force rather than even consider magic. “This mission rests on me. Only my head, you hear?”
“At least the wind is cooperating, Commander. It keeps most of these rats at bay. We’ve only a few hundred here to kill.”
That was both good and bad news as far as Bera was concerned. It was good that goblins were burning to death in the woods; in the distance. She could hear their screams and smell the stench of their roasting flesh.
But still, it was unfortunate that they were not dying by her own hand.
“For Zocci,” she whispered as she engaged a hobgoblin she’d spotted by the bluff earlier. One of its shoulders was lower than the other, and it moved with a pronounced limp. It wielded a crude spear that splintered when she struck it with her sword. “Pity you are not a more worthy foe,” she muttered as she shoved her blade through its stomach then raised her foot to push it off the weapon. The creature fell back onto an approaching goblin.
Goblins to her right shouted a horrid-sounding battle cry she couldn’t translate. Their strangled voices mingled with the clang of steel and the crackling flames. The air was hot to breathe and singed her lungs.
But Bera raged as hot as the fire.
She’d been weary after the failed strike on the bluff and their subsequent retreat, her arms and legs sore, and her neck stiff with a bothersome ache. But fighting with her hated foes somehow refreshed her; fresh power went into each swing. Not one man in her army-not one living man since Zocci was dead-was her equal in combat. She exulted in the moment.
Her husband had once told her that she lived to fight and that her bloodlust was stronger than her love for him or their daughter. She’d denied it, of course, though both of them knew he spoke the truth. Bera was born for battle. On another occasion he’d said she came into the world too late, that she would have been better suited to legendary challenges of the War of the Lance. She’d agreed with him then, saying those skirmishes were reportedly faster and deadlier than those of recent memory, and the stakes were in many respects higher.
The stakes were high for the battle that raged in the forest, though.
Flames snapped and popped all around her. The air was filled with burning flesh and trees. What would her husband think of her at that very moment, flailing away at goblins in the heart of the burning Qualinesti Forest? Would he be proud? Would she ever tell him her heart had been broken with Zocci’s death?
Another hobgoblin charged in, wearing a breastplate that looked like it had been cobbled together from multiple mismatched suits of chain and leather armor. Almost comical in its appearance, the hobgoblin nevertheless protected itself from her first swing. It grinned at her, drool spilling over its lower lip, the creature looking wet and slimy in the firelight.
“You disgust me,” she spit. “All of your kind.”
She swung higher, forcing the hobgoblin to parry her thrusts and giving it no chance to launch an attack of its own. Then she made a move to swing higher still, aiming for its big head. As it brought its own blade up, she dropped to a crouch and angled her sword up like a lance, skewering it in a gap she’d noticed between the uneven segments of chain mail. She faintly heard the sound of her blade grating against its ribs.
Her husband would understand her blood lust, she thought. He’d been a Dark Knight once, in the very early years of their marriage. But he’d injured his leg in a fight with a pair of young Solamnics, and though he’d slain them, one had managed a severe blow. The Skull Knights healed him but could not properly set his leg on the battlefield. He’d retired to raise their daughter.
Bera thought rarely of her daughter, a beautiful woman with her eyes set in her father’s face and with aspirations for only marrying well and raising a family. The girl had never shown an interest in the Order; perhaps that was why Bera had given back so little interest or affection. But when the fight was through and the necessary reports made to those above her, perhaps Bera would go home to visit the girl-woman, she corrected herself. Time was fast and elusive. She would visit her husband and daughter, who she hoped had found a man to marry and provide for her. Then she would look to her next posting and perhaps a coveted promotion.
“Commander!” Doleman shouted a second time to get her attention.
He’d been wounded, though not seriously, a slice on his upper sword arm. Bera moved closer to give him cover as he switched his sword to his left hand and transferred his shield to his right.
“My thanks, Commander.”
“Slaying another goblin would be thanks enough,” she returned.
He nodded and bull-rushed forward, his shield knocking down a goblin as he raised his sword and brought it down at an angle to sever the leg of another opponent. The one on the ground scrambled to rise again, but Doleman jumped on top of him, heel digging into the goblin’s neck and crushing and strangling him.
“Debt paid, Commander!”
“Aye, Lieutenant.” She turned to encounter a large goblin preparing to attack her. The creature wielded a club in its right hand and a wavy-bladed dagger in its left. More disgusting than its fellows, the goblin had two miniature heads hanging from its belt. They bobbed against its legs as it darted forward.
Elf heads, she realized with a start. Bera had studied goblins and knew there were sects that took trophies, such as hands and heads. She’d read about a tribe that shrunk the skin, believing it captured the spirit of the enemy. The visual proof of that legend gave her one more reason to despise goblinkind.
“Filth,” she cursed at it. “A disease on the face of Ansalon.” She changed her pattern of attack, raining blows down in a staccato fashion until the head-toting goblin tried to stumble back. But there were goblins behind it, and it was blocked from retreat.
“A disease!” she hollered. “And I am the cure.” She ran it through. Her heart sang with joy, and she whirled to find her next opponent, her next hated enemy, another treat for her sword.
AN UNANSWERED CRY FOR HELP
Graytoes was at the rear of the goblin throng. She could have stayed on the bluff. Should have, maybe, she thought. Younglings were gathered there, watched over by the oldest goblins and hobgoblins who were deemed too fragile or too wounded from the previous battle to fight. She could have helped them.