His scarred jaw snarling, the Justicar turned and let the club whip past him, his sword blade shearing a bright curl of wood shavings from the haft. He hacked hard at the ogre’s forearm, throwing his weight into everyblow.
The black sword suddenly bit into a wrist thick as a young tree, and sparks showered from an immense steel bracelet on the ogre’s wrist.The monster wrenched its hand back, blood pouring down its arm. With one arm ablaze in agony, the brute attacked one-handed with a vicious sideways swing. It bellowed, obviously intending to smash its enemy’s head.
An instant later, its target disappeared. The Justicar dropped to one knee, let the club whip past his head, then hacked into the hamstrings of the ogre’s knee. The monster fell with its right leg severed justas the other ogre launched itself at the Justicar.
The man threw himself forward to crash into the huge creatures waist. He lifted with a huge explosion of strength. Flesh crashed into flesh with a noise like thunder. Screaming, the ogre spun head over heels and smashed into the ground. The Justicar turned and kicked the monster in its broken shoulder, making it tumble howling through the ferns. He reversed his blade and stabbed two-handed down into the creature’s open mouth. Black bloodflew up to spatter all across the blackberry grove.
An arrow flashed from the underbrush a dozen feet away, piercing the Justicar’s armor and ripping a vicious line of pain across hisflank. He whipped his head about to glare at the archer.
Above the Justicar’s face, the wolf’s red eyes gleamed. Hello.
The woods sheeted with light as a huge tongue of flame thundered from the pelt’s jaws. Fire engulfed the screaming archer, blinding himas his clothing ignited. The archer dropped his bow and clapped hands across his eyes as he staggered, shrieking through the brush.
The Justicar rose to his feet, hissing in pain as he touched the arrowhead jutting out from his cuirass. “Thanks, Cinders.”
No problem.
Cinders’ red eyes gleamed, and the hell hound pelt seemed toglow with canine satisfaction. The Justicar felt the line of the arrow that had cut across his ribs and ripped the shaft painfully free. He planted an open hand against the bleeding wound, let the magic flash, and healed the injury.
In the bushes nearby, the archer still screamed as he burned. Chain mail and riding boots identified him as the caravan’s scout. The Justicarwiped his sword clean of blood while above him, Cinders sniffed the scent of scorching meat upon the wind.
Burns nice! The hell hound sniffed hungrily for blood.Kill with sword?
“No. Let the bastard burn.”
The scout had been an inside man for this merry little bandit gang. He must have led caravan after caravan into pre-planned ambush sites, setting the victims up for the kill and then guiding the ogres into the attack.
Let the traitor die hard.
Red hell hound eyes gleamed above the Justicar’s helm as theman gazed across the corpses. The man’s face rippled with the reflected light ofthe fire as he turned his heavy frame and stalked back toward the camp.
The wagoners and merchants had heard the sounds of violence in the brush. Six crossbowmen stood with the fire at their backs, making fine targets as they stared into the deepening dark. The Justicar halted in the brambles, sinking to his knees as he probed the shadows with his gaze.
Evening had dimmed the sky beneath oceans of purple-rose. Little light now filtered through the dark trees, and the woods were growing black. The Justicar tried to see into the brush up ahead, but the light of the wagoners’ campfire had turned the place into a maze of dancing shadows.
Hidden in the underbrush, the Justicar and Cinders carefully tested the breeze.
“He’s in there.”
One creature. Evil. Not human. The hell hound’s ears layflat as he scented prey. Smell magic.
Some of the teamsters had dogs. The attackers had deliberately approached the camp from downwind to keep the animals from scenting them. This placed the last attacker upwind of Cinders and the Justicar. The big ranger rose and hefted his sword, feeling a light breeze winding through the brambles and into his face.
“Polk!”
“Is that you, son? Is that you?” The talkative teamster helda cudgel in his hand and sheltered behind the six crossbowmen. “I told them itwould be you! ‘Now that’s the sound of a man at work,’ I said!”
“Quiet!” The Justicar felt like a target standing on acarnival shooting range. “There’s one of them in front of you. Throw firebrandsinto the brambles and burn him out!”
A sudden blast of light speared from the nearby brush. The Justicar hurled himself aside and turned to take a fierce blast of heat across his back. The hell hound pelt jerked as flame licked across it, the fireproof fur shielding the Justicar from the blast. Flame licked along his left arm, and the Justicar fell sprawling in the smoking ferns.
Feet pelted toward him as the last bandit made good his retreat. As he came near, the Justicar erupted from the ground with a lightning-fast swing of his sword.
His opponent was swift. The sword blow that should have sheared him off at the knees instead whipped through empty air. The Justicar cursed and sprinted in pursuit, his right arm suddenly crawling with pain.
Something dodged into the dead trees. A flame blast thundered out from Cinders’ nostrils, instantly setting the brush afire. The flames litup the figure of the running bandit, and he turned just in time to block the Justicar’s black sword with his own glittering silver blade. The raw force ofthe blow threw the bandit back toward the camp, and he fell sprawling in the dirt.
Placing himself and his deadly sword between his enemy and escape, the Justicar’s heavy, savage figure stood backlit by the flames. Hisenemy made a feral hiss in the firelight. As the trees behind him burned, the creature’s demonic face shone mottled and skull-like in the gloom. The creaturewas scaly, inhumanly slim, and dripping with lordly disdain. Long needlelike fangs disfigured an already ugly face. It gazed in distaste upon the savage sight of the Justicar, and firelight flickered inside the creature’s eyes.
Shifting his blood-smeared blade, the Justicar gazed at his enemy as though slowly measuring it for its grave.
Cambion.
A half-demon, part man and part monster, cambions were an abomination. As the Justicar poised his blade, breathing slow and hard, the cambion gave a sudden scream and charged forward.
They traded blows-the silver sword moving fast as lightningto block the Justicar’s black blade. The two swords met again and again, theforce of the Justicar’s barrage driving his enemy down, and then the manviciously kicked his enemy in the knee. The creature cursed and grunted as the Justicar hacked his sword into its armored hide.
The thing’s flesh jarred like teak, almost denting theJusticar’s blade. Scarcely scratched, the creature twisted and stabbed its swordat the man’s head. Steel screamed as one cheek guard almost tore free from theJusticar’s helm. The big man roared and butted his head into the hellspawn face.As the creature staggered back, the black blade chopped a thin wound across its cheek. Scenting the kill, the Justicar brought his sword back around in a blow designed to shear the creature in two.
Screaming an arcane incantation, the cambion shot a force bolt from its palms that staggered the Justicar back an instant before his blade could strike.
With shocking speed the Justicar bulled into the attack. His sword blow came blindingly fast, flicking aside the cambion’s blade and sweepingin a blur to cleave toward its neck.