As Glissa’s gaze fell to the base of the tower, she saw a mass of dark shapes moving slowly around the hill from both sides. For a moment she thought they were levelers, but the shapes were too small and too slow. It looked as if they were trying to encircle the city. She and Slobad might just beat the army if they ran, but she had no idea how to get inside the city once they arrived at the tower. Her sore leg had been throbbing since the first moon set, and she wasn’t sure how far she could run.
A horn blared from within the city.
CHAPTER 6
“We have to get inside the city!” said Glissa. “Now!”
Slobad didn’t react, so Glissa gave the goblin a shove, sending him scrambling down the hillside. She ran after him, grimacing with each step.
“Crazy elf!” shouted Slobad, arms flailing as he tried to stop his headlong rush into the valley. “You kill us both, huh?”
Glissa didn’t understand what Slobad meant until she saw a large patch of razor grass directly below them. Pulling her sword from the makeshift scabbard, Glissa lengthened her stride and rushed past Slobad. She reached the razor field just in front of the goblin, slicing her sword back and forth in front of her as she ran, cutting a path through the deadly plants. Razor-edged weeds longer than her sword flew into the air around the elf. She raised her forearm to protect her face.
“Aagh!” screamed Slobad from behind Glissa, but she couldn’t look back. Just a few more strides and she would be through the field. A weed sliced into her raised arm, and blood sprayed into her eyes as she ran.
When she burst out the far side of the razor field, Glissa stopped and glanced back at her friend. Slobad was right behind her and seemed uninjured. A single blade of razor grass had pierced his satchel, which the goblin held in front of him like a shield.
“That could have been my head, huh?” snarled the goblin as he yanked the razor blade from his satchel. “My head! Don’t do that again, crazy elf.”
Glissa smiled. “Sorry,” she said. She looked toward the leonin city and the advancing army. She and Slobad were still a few hundred feet from the base of the tower, but the encircling flanks of invaders were about that same distance apart and closing slowly. “This is going to be close,” she said. “Come on. There’s no time.”
Glissa ran. She could no longer feel her injured ankle. During her descent, everything below the wounds had gone numb. She knew that was a bad sign, but at least the pain no longer slowed her down. She and Slobad sprinted across the valley.
As they neared the tower, Glissa could see the invaders more clearly. What had been a dark mass of shapes became an army of dark creatures. At first she thought they were humans, but soon she could see that while they walked on two legs and had arms and heads, they bore little resemblance to elves, goblins, or even trolls.
“What are those?” shouted Glissa over her shoulder.
“The nim,” responded Slobad. “Creatures from Mephidross.”
The nim shambled forward, hunched over so far that it looked as if their heads jutted out from their chests. Their long arms reached the ground, giving them an odd, four-legged gait as their knuckles scraped against metal. A carapace ran from their heads down across their backs. It was as if their creator had torn the spines from the nim bodies and laid them on top of their skin.
The two flanks of the nim army were converging. Only a small strip of land remained open as Glissa and Slobad reached the army. The elf sprinted across the opening. A foul, acrid odor accosted her nose as she ran past the slow-moving nim. Now she could see tubes coming out from the sides of the creatures, tubes belching green gas into the air.
“Good thing they’re slow,” gasped Glissa halfway past the advancing army.
“Move slow, yes,” panted Slobad behind her. “Fight fast. Watch out!”
The closest nim swung one of its long arms toward Glissa. The movement was so quick that she had no time to dodge. She snapped her blade up to parry the blow and caught the nim’s arm right behind its clawed hands. The blade cut through the nim’s wrist as easily as it had cut through the razor grass. The claw dropped to the ground. More of the noxious fumes billowed from the injured nim’s arm along with a thick brownish-green fluid that Glissa assumed must be the creature’s blood.
She had no time to dwell on the strange physiology of the beast or to marvel at the power of her new sword. A dozen more nim reached for her as she ran on.
“Stay close, Slobad!” she shouted. “I’ll keep them off us.”
Glissa swung her sword in a figure eight in front of her as she ran, slicing through the grasping nim. The blows from each side came faster as more nim closed around them. Glissa could do nothing but hack at their hands and arms. The nim were too fast, and their arms were too long.
They were almost through the throng when one nim got past her blade barrier and caught Glissa on the shoulder. She tried to dodge the attack, but the nim’s claw dug into her skin. The force of the blow sent her stumbling forward. The elf scrambled to keep her footing, but her numb ankle betrayed her and she fell to the ground. Glissa rolled over, expecting another blow to land, but she was free of the nim army. The blow had sent her past the horde.
Slobad had not been so lucky. Glissa couldn’t see the goblin anymore. The two nim flanks merged behind her and began to advance.
“Slobad!” she called as she got to her feet.
As if in response, a nim several ranks back burst into flame. Glissa could hear the familiar hiss of Slobad’s flame tube. She limped toward the burning nim to help the goblin fight his way out of the horde, but she had to fight her way in to get to him.
The elf warrior struck at one nim’s arm, cutting it clean off, then brought the sword back around and cut the creature in two. She stepped into the horde and ducked down as three more arms flew in toward her head. Glissa crouched low and swung the sword in an arc around her, taking out the legs of all three attacking nim.
What had seemed a clever tactical move almost proved to be Glissa’s undoing. All three nim continued to fight, pushing themselves up on the stumps of their legs with one hand while slicing at her with another. From her crouched position, Glissa jumped over the grasping claws. She landed behind one of the legless nim, wincing as pain shot up her leg. She gritted her teeth and kicked back with her good leg to topple the attacking creature back into the other two.
She turned back toward the hiss of Slobad’s flame tube and came face to ugly face with the burning nim. It shambled forward, hardly seeming to notice the flames. Glissa parried one attack, sending a fiery arm flying into the face of another nim. She sidestepped as the beast lunged forward, swinging her sword down through the flaming nim’s carapace, severing the creature’s head from its hunched shoulders.
As the burning nim’s headless body slumped to the ground, Slobad ran past Glissa and dived over the tangle of legless nim. The elf followed, leaving a bloody mess behind her. The pain in Glissa’s ankle had returned with a vengeance after her previous vault. Her entire leg now felt as if it were on fire. It was all she could do to keep moving. Slobad returned to help her, and the two limped toward the tower just ahead of the merged army.
Glissa glanced back at the slow-moving nim. They were barely outrunning the creatures. “Are you sure they’re not after us?” she shouted over the din of the approaching army.
“No,” replied Slobad, “but Slobad don’t care. Just keep moving, huh?”