Infuriated at twin goat-dogs still chewing on his foot and tail, Jedit joined two fists, slung them in the air, and brought them whistling down while squatting to add weight to the blow. With a fearsome crunch, the skull of the beast on Jedit's foot pulped like an egg. Slinging his backside and hips, Jedit whisked the creature gnawing his tail in a swooping circle. The wretch tumbled atop its comrade, still growling furiously. The tiger raised both fists and dived like a cormorant. Missiles of flesh and bone hammered the beast's chest, ribs, and lungs into mush.
Yet the tiger wasn't spared a moment's rest, for the tentacled gorillas, fresh-bathed in the blood of innocents, singled out the battle-weary tiger-man as a challenger. With guttering roars like an avalanche, eyes and lips flaming, the coal-black fiends leaped upon Jedit with sloping arms and lashing tentacles. With a roar just as fierce, the wounded cat accepted the challenge.
Ungodly howls made the whole marketplace wince, but no one paid attention to the grappling man-tiger and hell-apes. From the far end of the marketplace came wild curses that smoked the air blue. Adira Strongheart had arrived to scream at townsfolk and pirates alike.
"Belay there, you skulking bottom-feeders! Drop anchor and pick up that wagon tongue! Virgil, beat that goat-thing to death, and be quick, or I'll scourge you bloody! You there! Smash those things with that jug! Don't stand gawking! Murdoch, lend a hand there, you worthless scalawag!"
With snappy orders and sparkling curses, Adira Strongheart hurled herself, her Circle of Seven, and anyone still alive into the battle of Palmyra's marketplace.
Where the market ran down both sides of the wide street, kiosks and awnings and carts had been upset, rent, chucked underfoot, and trampled. Fires springing from the Bogardan beasts burned canvas and wool awnings, nomadic robes, and more. Scattered about were saddles, bottles, melons, chickens, wooden serving bowls, and other detritus. More than a dozen townsfolk had been killed, dragged down and torn asunder by the terrible black goat-beasts, and a dozen monsters still tussled with fighters and savaged innocents. At the far end of the rambling melee, the tiger-man Jedit, more scarlet than orange, grappled with two monstrous apes whose backs sprouted lashing tentacles. A heap of dead goat-dogs encircled them, shedding blood, making even the dry dust slippery as ice. Nearby, Simone the Siren had momentarily lost her balance, tilted on one knee. Gamely she jabbed her cutlass to fend off three marauders. Sister Wilemina, so bloody even her short blonde braids looked dipped in red ink, straddled her companion and flailed sword and bow to keep them both alive. Elsewhere townsmen and women wrestled with dogs, crimson to the elbows from bites of the fiery jaws and stickle backs. Women sobbed, men cursed, children shrilled as a blacksmith and a farmer tried to brain a beast with a wooden stool and a manure fork. A mother with a child strapped on her back struggled with a beast whose throat she'd rammed with a wooden cart tongue. Two men punched a beast that wouldn't release a child's belly. Two town guards in yellow smocks painted with a red crescent labored to kill goat-dogs. More fights just as furious raged up and down.
Counting noses and looking to the worst scraps, Adira sent Virgil to drive a long-toothed spear through a goat-dog's side. The grizzled pirate shoved so hard and fast the struggling beast was rammed into a wall and the spear shaft snapped off in Virgil's hand. Grousing as usual, Virgil swung the broken haft like a club to belabor the brute's blazing head.
At Adira's order, Murdoch, the former sergeant turned mercenary, flung himself into the fray to prove his mettle to his new commander. Dark-tanned and ruggedly handsome, Murdoch fought with an iron-rimmed buckler strapped to his left arm, a fighting knife in his left fist, and a broadsword in his brawny right. With a battlecry "For Yerkoy!" he split a goat-dog in half through the spine.
Adira's two other recruits hung back, appalled by the carnage and unsure where to jump in. One was a brownie or halfling named Whistledove Kithkin, another refugee rescued from the fabulous sandstorm that smothered Johan's army. With smooth red hair and a billowy shirt and pantaloons in pink and purple, she resembled a child dressed for court, yet her rapier stung like a cobra. The other was Jasmine Boreal, a druid with red-blonde curls who wore linen and wool leggings, earrings of polished bone, and a wide leather belt hung with pouches and charms.
Shoving both women at the enemy, the pirate queen snarled, "Four bells, you two! Get the lead out! We're not playing at any Circle initiation! We're at war! Whistledove, fly or whatever you do! Get to Wilemina and stick something with that hairpin! Druid, waggle your fingers, and smoke some hides!"
Leaning back, Adira Strongheart whisked a dagger to hand and sent it spinning into the sky to skewer a bat. She caught the pommel in one hand without looking and flicked a dying Bogardan horror off the blade.
"All hands! Stand fast and earn your grog! Cut 'em down, fire their sails, and send these bastards to the bottom of the sea!"
Chapter 7
Under the hard-handed leadership of Adira Strongheart, the Circle of Seven flung themselves at the beasts of Bogardan until blood puddled underfoot.
Needing only orders, Whistledove Kithkin skipped along a row of jugs still upright and in one long leap seemed to glide like a hummingbird over a savage dogfight between townsfolk and monsters. The brownie kicked off an arching lintel and landed light as thistledown beside Wilemina, just in time to jab her rapier up through a goat-dog's jaw and into its brain, dropping the fiend in its tracks. Even Adira grunted approval at the feat.
Jasmine Boreal, meanwhile, had squeezed past the nearby dogfight to peer down a public well. Adira, limping on one stiff leg, readied a filthy epithet to bark at the feather-brained druid, but she stopped as Jasmine extracted some glittery powder like mica from a pouch and sprinkled it down the well. Instantly a column of water, hundreds of gallons, vomited out of the well into the sky. Snapping her callused hand, Jasmine pointed at some townsfolk harried by goat-dogs. Obedient as a spellbound water elemental, the column of water arced across the marketplace and doused the dogfight like a tidal wave.
Cannily, the druid had reckoned the fiery makeup of the beasts of Bogardan would shun water. She was right, for they were knocked silly. Stumbling and shambling as if poisoned, the coal-black fiends banged into one another and snapped at thin air as if demented. Flames around their eyes and mouths extinguished, and smoke and steam billowed around their heads. As the brutes staggered, angry Palmyrans belabored the dog-monsters with knives, butcher's cleavers, crockery, brooms, tent poles, and anything else that came to hand. Six beasts of Bogardan were beaten down and snuffed out.
"Drop the anchor and drag out the gangplank!" marveled Adira and threw Jasmine a mock salute. Smug, but moving on, Jasmine fiddled in a pouch and tucked dry leaves between her fingers. Tripping over dead goat-dogs and puddles, she caught up with Virgil and Murdoch.
Side by side, the two men plied swords in rhythm to hack at another clutch of beasts that stood their ground. The pirates tried to reach Wilemina and the downed Simone, but the dog-monsters punished the men with nips, bites, and flame breath even as they skipped and skittered away from sword blows.
Coming up behind, Jasmine slapped both men on the back with her herb-charmed fingers. Virgil and Murdoch jumped as if struck by lightning-or energized by it. Their arms suddenly swung swords so fast the action blurred. Flashing steel hacked alien beasts a dozen times in seconds, then a dozen times more, so fast and hard the beasts couldn't dodge. Within a heartbeat the infernal fiends lost a dozen legs cut out from under them. Virgil and Murdoch collapsed gasping and wheezing as if they'd run ten miles.