“Up the tree! Do it now, man!” M’Whan yelled at him. “Father! They’re coming at you from north and south!”
Eddis dove for her bow, slipped the string in place, and grabbed the three arrows she’d left next to her blanket the night before.
“Got it!” Jerdren shouted. “All right, people! Half of us over here, and Eddis, you take the north! Three lines deep, just like we practiced!”
“Got it!” she yelled back and grabbed two of the spearmen as she strode around the fire. Thank the gods they had practiced this maneuver, she thought as she knelt and dropped the sword belt between her knees, so she could fit an arrow to the string. Archers in front, spearmen behind, sword at the rear. It was all they had time for as several massive, ill-clad creatures burst into the clearing. Some carried short stabbing swords and round shields, one a mace, and two of them heavy clubs. She heard Jerdren yelling a challenge as her first arrow soared across open ground to bounce harmlessly off a hardened leather jerkin. You didn’t factor for the wind, she told herself and sighted down her second arrow. At her right, M’Baddah was steadily firing arrows, and to her left, Willow had already brought down two of the monsters.
“Aim for the eyes and the throat!” the elf shouted.
Eddis shot again, aiming just at the massive chin of the nearest orc. The wind sent it a little offside and down, but she’d corrected properly this time. With a howl of agony, the brute went down, nothing of her arrow visible in its throat but the fletching. With her third arrow gone—it wounded the orc who was trying to avoid tripping over his dying companion—she let one of the spearmen draw her back through their line and caught her breath. Keep men jabbed at the oncoming brutes, and two of the men fell.
Remember what you learned the one time you fought orcs, Eddis told herself grimly.
The man right in front of her brought down his enemy with a mighty thrust to the eye and lost his grip on the weapon. Eddis eased aside for him to retreat from the next orc that was charging straight at them, club swinging.
“Break—now!” she shouted. The same cry echoed from behind her half a breath later—so Jerdren was still on his feet and fighting. Orcs charged into them, but the humans and elf were no longer a compact fighting group, splitting off by ones and twos. Eddis leaped aside as one orc stumbled over the stones edging the fire pit and fell. One of the Keep men caught up the brute’s club and with a wild yell, brought it down on the back of its head. The orc shuddered, then lay still, its hair and jerkin smoldering.
“Look out, Blor!” Jerdren yelled.
M’Baddah pulled Eddis aside as another orc charged across the open at a dead run, a mace clutched in its hand. The outlander spun away from an overhand blow at the last moment. Eddis pivoted the other direction, letting the orc’s charge send it hurtling past her. Her sword sliced through the air and down, biting deep into the backs of its unarmored knees, severing tendons. The brute shrieked and collapsed on its back, one arm and the mace under it. Eddis reversed her grip quickly and brought the sword down two-handed, burying the blade in its throat, leaping back as blood pulsed high. It slowed almost at once.
Across the fire pit, Jerdren was fighting back one monster with slashing two-handed swings of a club. Blor was still on his feet, but she couldn’t make out anything else. A wordless shout of warning from M’Baddah brought her back around as he brought his curved sword down in a hard, overhand arc across the nape of a fallen orc. Two of the creatures still stood, but neither was moving well, and both were bleeding copiously. Two others came from the trees, but they weren’t running. Getting wary, she thought. They should. There were six of the brutes down and dead that she could see, and one of her people in trouble, so far as she could tell.
One of the two newcomers went after M’Baddah, who had fallen back with two of the spearmen. The other orc brought up its short sword and charged her.
She stood her ground until the last possible moment—nearly too late. Its shield clipped her left shoulder hard, and her arm went numb. She pivoted, but already off balance, she went to one knee, lashing out with the sword as the monster passed her. More by luck than intent, the blade slammed into its ankle just above a huge, filthy foot and rebounded, nearly flying out of her hand. Bellowing in rage and pain, the orc came about, sword slashing wildly as it tried to hit her. Eddis fought her way back to her feet and backed out of reach as the orc tried to come after her. The wounded leg wouldn’t support it, and it went down but fought its way back up again. Eddis glanced over her shoulder to make certain she wasn’t heading into the arms of another orc, then backed up, yelling as she went.
“Someone with a spear—finish him!”
“Arrow!” one of the Keep men shouted back, and she dropped to one knee, flinching as a bowstring twanged from somewhere close behind her. The arrow, unfortunately, merely creased the orc’s skull, but a half-breath later, one of M’Baddah’s deadly steel sh’kuris sang across the clearing and buried itself in the orc’s throat. The creature sagged, wavered, and finally fell over.
“Eddis!” Jerdren’s bellow cut through the howls of furious or wounded orcs. “They’re running!”
“Got it!” she shouted back. Apparently the orcs had had enough. Those who could still move were beginning to back away, leaving their wounded. When they reached the woods, they simply turned and fled. She turned to see two others running from Jerdren and Blorys. The only orcs over there were four wounded and three more dead.
She kept her sword at the ready and moved around the north perimeter of the camp as M’Baddah called out, “We’re clear here, my son!”
“Coming!” M’Whan shouted back. He sounded short of breath, and looked it when he and the Keep man came into camp a moment later. “They’re gone, father, across the road and still running. But one of them thought he’d climb into the tree with us, just now.”
“What were you doing in a tree?” Jerdren wanted to know.
The youth shrugged.
“We hadn’t much choice. One minute we two were alone out there, getting wood, and the next they were between us and camp. We got up high enough that the branches wouldn’t have held their weight.”
“Thanks to you, I’ll have that story to tell, lad,” the Keep man said. “Boy pulled me right up there with him, and me half again his size.”
M’Whan shrugged that aside, but his color was high as he went to help his father pull dead orcs from the camp.
Jerdren looked around, then raised his voice. “What damage, people?” he asked.
“A few ugly cuts and bruises on our side, and not much worse,” Eddis said. “M’Baddah, we can use you here, dressing cuts! Anyone who’s not badly injured, help drag those brutes out of here.”
“Search ’em first,” Jerdren called out, as he looked up from an examination of one of the dead orcs hear the fire. “Remember what we found last night!”
“Orcs,” Eddis muttered with distaste. She wasn’t ready to search through one of those greasy leather jerkins. Fortunately, no one else seemed to share her feelings. She sheathed her sword and winced. Her left arm was beginning to ache in earnest where that shield had slammed into it.
Jerdren came up moments later, grinning cheerfully, a heavy purse swinging from his left hand.
“Well!” he said cheerfully. “There’s one way to wake up the company, right, Eddis?”
“It’s hard on the porridge,” she replied dryly. “Why don’t you get that pig out of the fire pit? The fire’s going out, and the last watch hasn’t eaten yet.”
He tossed her the purse and bent to drag the smoking orc away. Eddis gazed at the bag with mixed feelings. It was heavy, but it was also soaked with blood. She dropped it on the ground and rolled it in the dirt and left it there for the moment. She clapped her hands together to get the men’s attention. Her arm throbbed in protest.