A coney-fox darted, shrieking. Ears lay back along its shoulders. Gray haunches pumped furiously. Claws flung up the mossy ground. Hunks of lichen smacked the fangs of its pursuer.
The monstrous thing came on, heedless. Eyes glowed yellow deviltry in the night. Mandibles thrashed hungrily. Four arms raked out after its prey. Taloned feet tore the ground. A barb-tipped appendage stabbed down, pinning the coney-fox's bushy tail.
With another shriek, the terrified creature yanked free, leaving half its tail behind. It bled. Each bound flung a sanguine trail behind it. The monster would never give up now. It would follow the blood path across the forest floor. It was doomed. To ground-every coney-fox knew to go to ground to die. It vaulted over a root tangle and scrambled down into the vast hole that opened on the other side.
Darkness lay ahead. The silver glow of the tree trunks receded. The coney-fox bounded down a worn trail among roots. There was a strong smell ahead.
Another creature laired down here, a creature with massive claws, a scaly gray hide, huge muscles-a crouched and lumbering thing. Its mouth was filled with blunt, plant-eating teeth. This beast was a protector. The coney-fox leaped beneath it, flushing it from cover. The lumbering satyr jumped up the side of the hollow just as the fanged monster plunged down it.
The satyr lunged atop the cateran enforcer. Quicker and crueler, the cateran bit open the beast's belly and started feasting.
In its dying gasps, the satyr clasped the cateran's legs and yanked them apart as though it were breaking a wishbone. A messy moment followed, and then one dead beast collapsed atop the other.
The coney-fox cowered silently below. More fanged horrors vaulted over the pit and raced on into the deep forest.
By the time Orim, Cho-Manno, Ta-Karnst, and Ta-Spon arrived at the battleground, the forest was bathed in blood.
Red shafts jutted from the bellies and brainpans of fallen monsters-boar-headed men, demon-eyed beasts, four-armed killers, things with scorpion tails, snake bodies, roach legs… They lay thick across the ground behind the battle lines. Scores more had broken through, crashing against hastily entrenched Cho-Arrim warriors.
Black armor bashed black carapace. Darting swords of bone parried darting stingers of poison. The Cho-Arrim were outnumbered four to one, but they bravely fought on. Unarmored archers even waded into the midst, their arrows leaping a mere arm's length to pierce fiendish eyes. The Cho-Arrim made a valiant stand, but more inhuman monsters rushed from the dark woods.
A four-armed monster ripped the armor from one warrior's chest and plunged its claws through skin and muscle and rib to pierce the flailing heart within. A boar-headed beast drove its tusks up beneath a woman's jaw, impaling her and whipping her back and forth until her chin ripped off. A scorpion-man sunk its stingers in an archer's eyes and smiled lustfully as it pumped its red venom into his brain.
"I've got to get down there!" Orim gasped, clawing forward over a mossy root bulb.
Cho-Manno's hand pulled her back. "No. Wait here with TaKarnst. If my healers die, my warriors are doomed. First, let us drive them back. Then you emerge to tend the wounded." Drawing his bone sword, Cho-Manno strode down the embankment. Beside him went Ta-Spon, the gigantic executioner who had slain Klaars. Ta-Spon bore a massive spiked mace on his shoulder. Soon, those spikes would be running in blood.
"Drive them back?" Orim worried aloud as she watched the men's broad, armored shoulders. "How can they possibly drive them back?"
Young and lithe beside her, Ta-Karnst pointed to a rise of wood that overlooked the battlefield. "Watch. The wizards have arrived."
"What good is water magic in a dry place?"
"No place is truly dry," Ta-Karnst said. "Look!"
A spell leaped in white ribbons down from the hillside. It surged toward the center of the battle, where a four-armed beast tore apart warrior after warrior. The monster stood in a small swale between roots. Blood mantled the creature and filled the spot to cover its talons. Tendrils of force plunged into the blood pool, coiling through it, enlivening it. A sanguine vortex rose. As it gathered more liquid, the vortex formed into a man-a man of blood. With no sword, no armor, the man rammed his gory fist down the cateran's throat. His arm followed to the elbow, to the shoulder.
"What is it doing?" Orim asked.
"Drowning the beast in blood," Ta-Karnst said.
Gagging, clutching its throat, the cateran fell to its knees. Red bubbles gushed from its mouth, and it sank down in the pool of blood surrounding it. Gore disgorged from the monster's nostrils and mouth. The pool churned again, another vortex rising. The blood warrior drew more power from the pool and strode out to attack a second beast.
"We are, after all, creatures filled with water," TaKarnst said. "But we are not the only ones-see?"
Another spell lashed down from the wizards on the hill. Fingers of mist reached out and wrapped around a boar-headed invader. Droplets of water condensed out of air and soaked into the beast's hide. Moments later, steam issued from its every pore. The monster shuddered, flesh seemed to boil. It opened its mouth to bellow, but only steam jetted angrily forth. With it came the unmistakable scent of roast boar. It, too, collapsed.
As more magic roared down from the hilltop, Cho-Manno and his warriors made brutal work of the beasts. The chieftain strode angrily against the foes, driving his sword into bellies and hearts and eyes. Ta-Spon's mace had become an aspergillum that laved the battlefield in blood. Beside him fought the blood warrior, empowered by the red rain in the air.
No new monsters joined the fray, and those already fighting fell back before the Cho-Arrim defenders.
"And now, they are trapped," Ta-Karnst said, gesturing behind the line of beasts.
From the treetops, on cords as long and sleek as spider webs, dropped the skyscouts. Others glided down on capes that draped from ankles to wrists. They reached the ground and drew their swords. In moments, as many Cho-Arrim stood behind the beasts as before them. The battlefield had become a vice.
"Let's go," Orim said. She vaulted over the root cluster and ran down the slope. Ta-Karnst followed behind.
They reached the first of the fallen warriors, many of them dead. For those who lived, there were bandages and salves, opiates to deaden local pain and soporifics to bring sleep. The work was brutal and busy. The number of wounded was overwhelming. Lacerations, amputations, eviscerations, poisonings…
Orim worked over her ninth patient when Cho-Manno strode to her side.
"The battle is won," he said heavily.
"I'm still fighting mine," Orim replied, cinching a tourniquet on a ruined arm. Panting, she asked, "Do we even know who the attackers were? Where they came from?" Cho-Manno stooped, helping to tie the tourniquet in place. "They were cateran mercenaries, as I thought. They were hired by the Mercadians."
Shaking her head bitterly, Orim hissed, "Mercadians… they are not among the children of Ramos, are they?" "No. Their origin is different than ours. But the forest knows them, now. They will not win so far inward again. As soon as Mercadians harm the forest again, greater powers will arise. The forest itself will destroy them."
"Vicious monsters. Why are the Mercadians attacking us?" Cho-Manno's eyes were dark in his handsome face. "They came to capture Weatherlight."
Chapter 6
Tahngarth coughed and spat a gobbet of dust-blackened spit into the parched earth. The beads in his hair rattled in the dry wind. The minotaur reached up behind his neck and adjusted the straps of the pack riding high on his muscular shoulders. He twisted his other arm, reaching inside the heavy fabric of his brocaded jacket. His thick fingers scrabbled against his chest, reached his armpit, and gave a long, satisfying scratch.