Chane did not like this. With the exception of Osha, he had never encountered anyone as tall as Brot’an. To face two or more while bearing the chests was not possible. Everyone fell silent, likely contemplating the same thing.
“And,” Brot’an added, “given these are guardians of the Enemy, I suspect mere arrows would not dispatch them. My making such an attempt would only give away any element of surprise in our favor.”
That was worse, considering what Chane had seen of the assassin’s use of the bow hidden beneath his cloak and tunic.
Leesil asked Ore-Locks, “Wynn said you can take Chane with you through stone. Is that true?”
Chane tensed, and Ore-Locks’s brow wrinkled.
“Why?” the dwarf asked.
“We can’t fight while carrying the chests,” Leesil answered. “From here, can you pass through stone and move upward until you reach the passage inside, down a ways from the entrance under the overhang? Can you do it with you and Chane bringing at least two chests at a time?”
Ore-Locks finally nodded.
“Then the rest of us will clear a direct path,” Leesil added, looking to Brot’an. “Or at least keep the guards distracted while the chests are moved. If the opening is that well guarded, it has to be an entrance.”
Though this sounded risky, Chane could think of nothing better, and they had already lingered too long.
Leesil pushed past everyone to start climbing out of the crevice’s upper end. Brot’an followed, as did Ghassan. And then Chane was alone with his old comrade.
Ore-Locks shook his head. “I have never taken part in anything so haphazard.”
Chane agreed but did not reply. Too much was being planned in the moment, and he could not stop thinking of Wynn, wherever she was. Leaning down, he gripped one of the poles strung between two chests. A sharp rise of noise broke from below.
It repeated like rolling thunder. Ore-Locks rushed past the chests and Chane to the crevice’s bottom end.
“Horses!” the dwarf whispered.
Chane dropped the pole to join him. He had neither seen nor heard horses in the camp, but it was dark for even his eyes. His astonishment bordered on disbelief.
“Elves!” Ore-Locks said. “Never thought I would be glad of them.”
Chane’s night sight widened. He saw tall Lhoin’na riders in dark attire, scattering in a wave as they charged across open ground below at the mountain’s base. The only way that he knew who they were was by the glint of unsheathed swords and light-colored hair pulled up in tails.
Shé’ith riders.
This must be why Chuillyon had left, likely at Chap’s or Wynn’s urging and instructions. Checking on Wayfarer, Osha, and Shade had been an excuse, though how the Chuillyon had brought these forces in was a puzzle.
Chane grew furious, for no one had told him. Now a pitched battle raged close to Wynn. One rider caught his attention, for even in the darkness, he could see that one’s hair was brighter and his attire differed from that of the others.
“Osha!” Chane rasped.
His maimed voice could not carry over the distance. Even so, shouting would reveal their presence. He grabbed Ore-Locks as he pointed.
“Can you get to that one and turn him our way?” he asked.
“We do not have time! We must get through the mountain while the others distract the guards.”
In all his life, Chane had rarely begged for anything. “Please. For Wynn.”
Ore-Locks scowled, grumbled with a breathy exhale, and did something Chane had never seen before. He sank like a rock dropped into a pond and vanished under the mountainside.
Chane rushed to the crevice’s lower end. He crouched, rigid and tense, waiting to see where the young stonewalker would reappear as he watched Osha’s horse charge onward with the Shé’ith.
A distant clank of steel rolled downslope through the night.
Chane spun and looked upward through the dark as his panic rose another notch.
Leesil and the others had already engaged the guards.
Leesil crept after Brot’an, and then both of them flattened against the slope as they neared a place where he finally spotted the craggy overhang above. He heard Ghassan behind him.
Brot’an finally stopped, as did Leesil.
There was no more cover the rest of the way up. If there had been any, it had all been cleared away, likely for a defensible position.
Brot’an’s head turned, as if looking back, though Leesil could not see the scarred face within the dark hood. Brot’an curled his fingers to pinch something between the first two, and Leesil heard a stiletto slide out into that hand.
Brot’an went utterly still, his face still unseen in the pit of his hood.
Leesil understood and quietly unlashed his left punching blade. At that, Brot’an’s other hand slipped behind his back where he half lay on his side. That hand came back into sight, gripping a white metal, hooked bone knife.
They had to close the last distance at a run.
Leesil carefully levered up on one arm for a better look.
A hulkish form, as tall as Brot’an, dressed only in a waist-wrap, trudged toward the deeper dark below the overhang. It stopped, turned to face down the mountainside, and a nearby pole torch exposed it.
Leesil stared, not understanding what he saw. Ghassan drew a sharp breath behind him.
“Locatha,” the domin whispered.
Leesil didn’t know what that meant as he continued taking in the sight of the huge guard.
A hairless, scaled head with pure black eyes above its protruding muzzle looked down the mountainside. Whether it could see the battle below, Leesil couldn’t tell.
Its shoulders, broader than a man’s, were covered in glistening scales larger than the ones on its head. Those plates ran up its thick-based neck. In one hand, it steadied a double-thick spear’s shaft, but the blade atop that was the size of a short sword, at least.
“You know of these creatures?” Brot’an whispered without looking back.
Ghassan was slow in answering. “They are hard to kill and possess limited mental function. Both are useful qualities in a guard.”
Leesil didn’t bother to ask how the domin knew this.
“My skills are of minimal use on such minds,” Ghassan went on. “Take out their eyes first, if you can. Their hides are difficult to penetrate.”
The last of that was obvious as Leesil clenched his jaw. They hadn’t even gained access, and now this? The best option he saw was to keep the guards distracted while Chane and Ore-Locks snuck in the chests. And then what?
“Draw and divert,” Brot’an whispered, again without looking back. “Kill after.”
And how were they to do the latter? The largest weapons between them were Leesil’s punching blades. He wouldn’t know until too late if one of those could penetrate an armored hide deeply enough. Just the same, he pulled the other blade, and after one more breath ...
Leesil sprang up at a run, hoping to take advantage through surprise. He heard Brot’an right behind him as they raced to close the distance before being spotted.
Wynn grew frantic where she crouched, watching the battle below. But no matter what she could make out in the dark, she saw no sign of Magiere.
Had Magiere lost herself completely in facing so many undead? She was supposed to have led them into the reach of the sun crystal’s light.
Wynn almost stopped breathing. She watched as racing, screaming, and growling silhouettes down there threw themselves at one another. Now and then, some were briefly exposed by scattered firelight, and what she saw was best forgotten. Then she heard the howling and quickly rose up.