Auum backed to the edge of the crown and beckoned Elyss on. He watched her with a smile on his face. Her step was light, her jump was perfect and she whispered onto the palm. Auum caught her arm and the two stood together, balanced to catch Malaar and Ulysan, both of whom landed without error.
Below them, Auum could see warriors patrolling around the working party. The resting mage team were sitting with their backs to trees, or lying stretched out on cleared ground, using their cloaks against the damp. Auum waited until he heard the calls that signalled each cell was ready.
‘Strike hard,’ he said. ‘Keep moving and target casting mages first. Don’t chase the extra kill. Tais, we strike.’
The kinkajou call sounded a second and last time. Auum grabbed the tip of a palm branch and stepped off the crown of the tree. He fell fast, his descent slowed at the critical point by the tension of the branch. Ten feet from the ground, he let go. Below him, a warrior began to look up, aware at the very last moment that he was under attack.
Auum landed, legs around the man’s neck. His hands came down and clamped around the soldier’s head. He twisted hard, breaking his neck. The man collapsed but Auum was already moving again, his weight forward, turning a roll as he hit the ground. He came up in a crouch, Elyss and Malaar landing by him. Faleen’s cell dropped just in front of him and headed towards the perimeter guards.
Men were screaming orders at each other. Warriors inside the perimeter grouped and ran towards the resting mages. Auum sprinted left, his Tai with him. He couldn’t see Ulysan. Behind them a man screamed, and Auum felt blood spray across the back of his head.
‘Get among the mages,’ he shouted.
Elyss and Malaar split left and right. Ahead, warriors had heard him and were turning. Four of them, with short blades in hand and bucklers on their forearms, faced him without fear. Three others tracked the movement of his Tai. Auum drew a blade with his right hand and snatched a jaqrui from his belt with his left. He threw the crescent blade as he advanced, seeing his target deflect it high and away with his buckler.
Auum grabbed his second blade and attacked, tracing its tip in the leaf litter as he came. The enemy stood in close formation, bucklers in front of their chests and necks, their short blades held low. Auum feinted a move right and saw the rightmost warrior tense just as he jammed his right foot into the earth and leapt left and forward, left-hand blade carving down into the space below him.
He felt its edge bite into shoulder flesh and heard the howl of pain. Auum was turning out, his back to the enemy for a brief moment. He drove into the turn with his right blade, landing as it struck square on the buckler of a second warrior. Auum was facing them once more.
Both flanking warriors rushed in, blades coming at him at chest height. Auum blocked them with his swords and kicked out straight, catching the wounded soldier in the gut. The man fell back. His sword had tumbled from his grip and blood surged from the wound in his shoulder.
Auum moved on, his arms still outstretched, holding the enemy blades at bay. A buckler thudded into his side and Auum twisted as he fell, turning the weight of the blow into a tumble to the left. A blade bit the ground just behind him; Auum bounced to his feet and snapped a right-footed kick around in front of him. His heel cracked into an attacker’s arm, breaking it at the elbow.
Auum dived right, rolling around his shoulders and back on his feet in a moment. Two warriors disabled. Elyss jabbed a blade into the gut of a third guarding the mages and ran forward towards those readying a casting. Malaar was caught up fencing with two more. He was not going to break through fast enough.
‘Uly-’
The barrel-chested Tai soared over Auum’s head and landed right in front of Auum’s two remaining attackers. Auum ran to his left. Ulysan aimed a roundhouse kick at the head of one, smashing his arm and buckler up into his temple as he tried to defend himself. The second struck down at Ulysan’s open flank. Auum’s blade came down, severing his arm at the wrist. He screamed and looked round in time to catch Auum’s second strike in his mouth and through the back of his neck.
Ulysan needed no invitation. He ran after Elyss, straight at the mages, and blood misted the air. Those that were not downed in the next few moments split and ran.
‘See them away!’ shouted Auum.
He swung about. Faleen’s body was at right angles to her attacker, her leg straight out and high, pinning him to a banyan with her foot in his throat. He was eviscerated by Wirann’s blade. Acclan led his Tai against a knot of six soldiers defending a group of mages who didn’t see Illast’s Tai advancing on them from the rear.
Acclan threw a jaqrui. It thudded home into a warrior’s thigh. He did not break stride, instead leading a charge directly towards Acclan’s cell. With their bucklers held before them as battering rams and their blades cocked to stab out straight, the humans raced into battle.
‘Evade!’ Acclan yelled.
He leapt straight up, grabbing a trailing vine to hasten his rise above their attackers’ heads. To his left, Tiiraj threw himself to the side and was on his way up almost as soon as he hit the ground. But to his right, Gyneev had not reacted fast enough. He was caught by a flailing arm as he moved, a buckler catching him on the side of the head and knocking him senseless against a palm trunk.
Auum roared a panther’s warning call and sprinted to his defence. He was just ten paces away. Acclan landed behind the group, turning towards his fallen Tai. Tiiraj dragged her blade through one man’s leg and charged at the mages. Illast’s cell raced in. Auum looked up as he ran, seeing Tiiraj fly into the attack. In turn, Auum threw a jaqrui at the warrior nearest Gyneev, distracting him for a critical moment.
Mages cast.
Illast and his Tai were picked up and hurled backwards into the forest by the blast. Auum jumped into the space before Gyneev, fielding a blow on one blade. Warriors came at him from either side. Acclan came too but he alone would not be enough to make a difference.
‘Acclan. Mages,’ ordered Auum.
Three warriors were on top of Auum already. He cracked a low kick into the knee of one and blocked the downward strike of another with his left blade. This stabbed out, slicing the same man’s side and drawing blood. But the third dodged around him and plunged his blade to the hilt into Gyneev’s back as the young TaiGethen struggled to regain his feet.
Auum’s fury was unbound. ‘Coward!’
He landed a kick in the man’s chest, sending him sprawling back. Auum swung right and lashed a blade into the wounded warrior’s face. The third aimed a blow but never landed it. Malaar’s foot connected with the base of his neck, killing him instantly.
Auum turned on Gyneev’s murderer. The man was backing away, suddenly alone in a sea of TaiGethen with blood on his hands. Behind him, Acclan and Tiiraj slaughtered the mages that had not turned to run. He saw Faleen race past towards Illast and his fallen cell, ready to defend them from the warriors still loose in the forest. Auum paced forward.
‘No TaiGethen kills a worthy foe with a blow to the back,’ he said.
His left blade whipped out, slicing the soldier’s face open from forehead to chin.
‘No TaiGethen disrespects an adversary who has honour.’
His right blade crashed down on the man’s buckler, ruining his forearm.
‘No TaiGethen will henceforth see a worthy foe in man, nor can any of you achieve honour.’
Auum’s blades switched in front of him and the man’s sword arm was severed at the shoulder and his throat cut — but not fatally. The soldier was shaking with pain, shock and terror. His death was in his eyes. Not yet.