The one who was apparently their leader, a big heavyset human with a thick beard and a nose squashed over his face, strutted to and fro, nodding and laughing.
‘Fucking sharp-ears,’ he said. ‘You don’t get any smarter, do you?’
Nillis felt cold as the laughter spread around the circle. The man barked another order. The barriers were gone. Warriors charged them.
‘NO!’ screamed Ulakan.
He dropped to his haunches and snatched up his sword. He held it to ready. Nillis, too terrified even to scream, felt warm and wet down his legs and tried to back away to nowhere. The men crashed into the helpless elves. He saw one bat Ulakan’s sword aside and then plunge his blade straight through his chest. Blood fountained into the air.
Bloodied blades rose and fell, chopped and hacked. Elves tried to run in every direction. Men howled in brutal pleasure. Nillis turned around. A blade covered in slimy gore ripped into the neck of an ula standing right in front of him. The elf crashed back on top of him, trapping him.
He stared out at the carnage. Shrieks filled his ears. Laughter too. Prayers turned to sobs and then to nothing. The sick thud of metal on flesh and bone. The desperate pleading, the screams cut off. The awful wounds. Jaws smashed to fragments. Skulls cracked open. Bodies split, entrails pouring on to the ground. The splash of boot through blood. The hot sour stench of shit mixed with innards. Steam rising.
Blood slapped at Nillis’s ear like the gentle incoming tide. The elf lying atop him was still shuddering with the last of his life. A blade came down and hacked deep into his skull and the shuddering stopped. The body slid to one side.
Nillis stared straight into the cruel eyes of a human swordsman.
The man grunted a laugh. His teeth were broken and rotten when he grinned.
His blade rose.
Nillis watched it all the way down.
Chapter 26
Courage lies in the willingness to die for those who are yet to be born. Pelyn had her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Tulan and Ephran had run upstairs to confirm by sight what they had heard. Methian was standing in front of the bedroom door, stopping them from running out to fight.
The slaughter was done. Hundreds of Tualis butchered by men in the service of the Ynissul. Pelyn felt sick. The spray of blood when swords were raised to hack down another youth or helpless ula or iad would remain in her nightmares for eternity. As would the sight of men walking through the charnel, kicking the bodies to make sure all were dead. Chopping down on those still in the final throes.
Others knelt to clean their blades as best they could on blood-soaked clothes before searching pockets and picking up the best of the weapons. Daggers smothered in gore. Short swords kicked from the hands of those who had tried to defend themselves at the last.
‘We can’t just stand here!’ shouted Ephran.
‘And what will you do, the pair of you?’ snapped Methian, shoving them back yet again. ‘Rush out there and take on a hundred men and their bastard magic?’
‘We have to do something,’ said Tulan, weeping his words.
‘We can keep quiet for a start,’ hissed Pelyn, dragging her gaze from the park. ‘And we will do something. We’ll take news of this to any who will hear. And we will strike back, I promise you.’
Pelyn felt empty. Never mind that many of those murdered would have visited equal cruelty on her. This they did not deserve. No elf did. She glanced back outside. Men were gathering, talking and pointing. Immediately, they began to move towards the houses of the Ash. Others were already most of the way to the street.
‘And they don’t want any witnesses,’ said Pelyn. ‘Time to leave.’
The four Al-Arynaar ran down the stairs and headed for the back entrance across the garden. The men were already at the front door, crashing through it. She heard shouts behind her. They’d been seen.
‘Move!’ shouted Pelyn.
They headed across the broad communal gardens, breasting through the thick bamboo edging into the back alley. Pelyn looked left and right. Men appeared right and sprinted towards them. She pushed Methian ahead of her. Their escape route would lead them back down towards the Glade and into the face of the men advancing up the Path of Yniss, heading for the centre of the city.
Six or seven men were behind them, losing ground but shouting for others to join the chase. Tulan led the way down the narrow passage between garden borders. Pelyn glanced up on instinct. Mages above them were directing the enemy.
‘We’ve got to find cover!’ she shouted. ‘Tulan, head for the fish market. We can lose them in there if we can make it.’
Tulan made the end of the alley and turned right, the others close behind him. They’d exited onto Keeper’s Row. It ran parallel with the Path of Yniss for a time before angling in to join it at the head of the Glade. From there a run north halfway back towards the harbour, and they’d find the fish market.
Pelyn glanced behind her. A mage hovered overhead. He was calling and gesturing. Men spilled out of the alley fifty yards behind them. The mage flew overhead, tracking their route. She saw him looking to his left and making another beckoning gesture.
‘Tulan. Watch left. More coming your way.’
She needn’t have warned him. Six more men ran from another alley to block their escape. Tulan slithered to a stop and drew his sword; Ephran came to his right to stand by him. Pelyn turned and drew her own blade, Methian to her left. Four against twelve with more undoubtedly coming. It didn’t look good. The mage circled overhead. At least it seemed he couldn’t do any other damage while he was in the air.
‘Keep talking,’ said Pelyn. ‘Keep moving. Don’t break the circle.’
The men ran at them in line abreast. They carried long swords; some had daggers in their free hands where others preferred to go two-handed.
‘Time for your revenge, Tulan,’ said Methian.
‘I hear you,’ said Tulan.
A shadow flashed across the facade of the houses to Pelyn’s right. She heard a mourning wail. Light sparkled on metal. The mage screamed. All eyes looked up. A jaqrui crescent jutted from his chest. His wings flickered and disappeared and he plunged to the ground.
Pelyn smiled at the hesitating humans.
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘You’re in trouble now.’
Seizing the moment, Pelyn ran forward, slashing her blade across chest high. Her target saw her late, his guard only half formed. Pelyn’s sword dashed his from his hand. She balanced quickly and reversed the blade high across the man’s face, the edge biting deep.
Next to him, a second man dropped soundlessly, falling forward. A third followed, blood spurting from his mouth, the elven blade plunging into lung and heart. Behind them, Grafyrre spared Pelyn the briefest of smiles before launching a fresh attack.
‘Methian, help Tulan. We’ve got this lot,’ said Pelyn.
The men were in disarray, not knowing which way to turn. One came at Pelyn though his attention seemed elsewhere. Pelyn blocked the half-hearted strike to her face easily, stepped forward and punched her enemy square on the nose. He staggered back. One of his comrades called a warning. Another man fell forward, blood sheeting down the front of his armour.
Grafyrre bounced into the air, turned a somersault and landed legs wrapped around the neck of his next victim. He jammed daggers into either temple. The man collapsed. Grafyrre rolled backwards, landed on his hands and sprang back to his feet. Pelyn drove her blade into the last man’s gut, just above the waist where leather met leggings.
The man gasped and fell to his knees. Grafyrre wrapped an arm around his head and broke his neck. Pelyn turned. Three more men lay dead. Grafyrre swept up his weapons but made no further move to join the fight.
‘Leave them,’ he said to Pelyn. ‘It is under control.’
And so it was. Tulan battered his blade into the side of one, putting him down on the ground. One of two short blades held in Merrat’s hands finished him. The other stabbed up into the groin of a human knowing his time was done. Ephran took the sword hand from the last man. He whimpered, clamped his other hand across the stump and stared at the six elves.