The Coming Storm (37 page)

Elon’s hand was on Jareth’s arm, dragging him off his horse to give the wizard a sharp shake.

“Jareth,” Elon shouted, “We need you.”

The image of himself falling into the abyss over and over again vanished from Jareth’s mind.

With a nod, Jareth shook himself.

“Yes. I’m all right.”

Elon looked around.

Colath had dismounted with sword in hand and taken up his place to one side of the Bridge. Jalila and Ailith both fired arrows into the mass of oncoming drows.

There was a flash of light as Jareth sent a mage-bolt crackling across the span. A drow screeched and fell and then the things charged, jostling one another, pushing and shoving to cross the arch of stone.

The Bridge claimed its first victim as one of the drows got too close to the edge. It slipped, the slope of the edge taking its feet out from under it. It fell, yowling, out into space, tumbling downward.

None of the others so much as paused, coming across so fast Jareth scrambled to get to a better position, flinging mage-bolts as he went.

They poured across the span in a flood.

Drawing his swords Elon cut the first one in two while Colath took the head off another. A mage-bolt took the next even as he swung at those that followed. Behind, more drows pushed and shoved each other to get across, driving Elon and Colath back. Some fell of themselves, while others leaped,  misjudging the edge to spin howling out of sight. Others fell to the steady rain of arrows Jalila and Ailith fired as fast as they were able.

Suddenly, one leaped past its companions

Elon dodged out of the way as it barely cleared his head. Then the next one was coming and there was no time to do anything but defend.

The only thought he had time to have was to keep fighting

Jalila spun, sighting one of the creatures with an arrow just as it leaped and took Ailith out of the saddle. She fired an arrow into its back even as they fell and another as the two landed in the bushes with Ailith beneath the thing.  To no effect. Branches snapped and cracked beneath them. She looked around grimly.

Elon was too busy.

A flash of mage-light from Jareth as a mage-bolt took another drow.

Colath was cut off on the other side of the flow, trying to keep the drows from circling to take their flank.

In despair Jalila sent another arrow into the drow that attacked Ailith, even as others swarmed toward them.

Ailith hadn’t even seen it. The leap surprised her and then the weight of the drow had hit, driving her out of the saddle. She hit bushes on her way down, then ground and the breath went out of her as the drow pinned her to the earth. Struggling for breath, she heard the thrum of Jalila’s bow and felt the thing twitch as it grabbed a handful of her shirt and vest.

Claws scored searing tracks across the skin over her ribs.

A drow leaped from the span, its claws scrabbling to keep purchase but Jalila put an arrow into its throat even as another bounded across. They had her range now, her bow was of no use. Scrambling from her saddle, Jalila pulled her swords.

She couldn’t help Ailith, now she fought simply to survive.

The drow grabbed Ailith by the shirt-front, held her up in the air like a trophy, yowling to the others. It shook her.

There was an answering howl from those beyond. They threw themselves into the battle in renewed fury.

Beyond the drow that held her, Ailith could see the others. She’d never seen anyone wield a sword as fast as Elon did, countering the drows. Pivoting on his toes he spun and his swords flashed in the sunlight. He dodged but not quickly enough. Claws ripped through fabric and skin. Blood flowed.

Elon!

He nearly tripped, darted clear of the brink.

Ailith’s heart was in her throat.

Beyond, Colath was besieged, both swords flying as Jareth fired magebolt after magebolt. A paw flashed across Colath’s chest, shredding his shirt to leave a row of bloody cuts across the muscles there.

The drow shook her.

She couldn’t get to her longsword from this position. Frantically, she pulled her shortsword from its sheath at her hip and swung, hacking deep into the neck of the thing. The drow howled but didn’t release her. Her belt knife. Desperately she pulled it from its sheath and stuck it up under her shirt where the fabric was gathered in the thing’s claws, ripped upward and hoped she wouldn’t cut her own throat.

Jareth shouted. A drow had him. Colath hammered at the thing with his swords but it had its arms around the wizard, crushing him. There was a flash as Jareth clapped his hands over the thing’s ears. It released him, staggered backward and fell away into the chasm. Colath spun, swung and took off the head of the next. It collapsed.

So did Jareth, falling to his knees with his arms around his cracked ribs.

Colath took a stance in front of his friend to defend him.

The fabric of Ailith’s shirt parted, the sound drowned out by the drows.

Ailith dropped to her feet and rammed her shortsword deep into the drow’s belly as she dropped her belt knife and drew her longsword.

At its scream one of those who pressed Jalila howled, turned, and charged.

Spinning, Ailith put her weight into her swing and cut the thing in half.

The scream from that drow was a call, as one the others turned and charged across the clearing toward her.

A massive blow sent Jalila flying to crash into a tree. She hit hard and went still, sliding down the trunk. That drow yowled and rushed at Ailith as well.

More drows came, leaping or bounding across the gap.

Elon caught only a glimpse of Ailith, her sun-lightened hair beyond the mass of drows, just as she was buried beneath them.

Despite the tearing pain in his side, he ran, with Colath beside him.

Jalila and Jareth were both down as well, he saw from the corner of his eye.

Ailith saw the rush coming and tried to scramble away from Jalila lest she be trampled. The creatures followed. Then there was nothing but fighting and slashing before the mass of them hit her.

Pinned to the ground, her arms and legs held firmly in place, their claws scratched and scrabbled at her as she struggled and heaved to get them off.

A hard overhand blow from Elon and one went down as Colath stepped in and took another’s head off. A drow turned and swung but Elon stepped back and ran it through with his shortsword.

Under attack from the rear, the others turned to fight.

One of the drows had a handful of Ailith’s hair and used it to smash her head into the ground. Their weight crushed her, drove the air from her lungs. She twisted and fought, tried to get her head free, to get the weight off her chest. Wrenching her arm, she got her left hand free and swung, connecting enough that the drow drew back a little with a yowl. It was enough.

She drove her blade through the ribs of the one that leaned on her chest and pinned that leg. Drawing back she kicked, hard, as one collapsed and its dead weight fell against the arms and legs of those pinning her right side.

They toppled like dominos.

Pulling, feeling muscles and tendons scream, Ailith kicked with her free leg.

Unbalanced, another wobbled and she wrenched her right arm free, her hand clenched firmly around the hilt of her longsword and drew it across her body, sucking in her belly. It raked across two of them, made one yelp and another stagger backward.

Elon took that one’s head off.

From her knees she drove her longsword upward into the belly of one as Colath took the last.

To their astonishment they stared around at the sudden silence. It was over.

For a minute, they simply stood and looked at each other, dazed, amazed they’d survived the assault.

Elon let his sword droop then leaned on it wearily.

There was a hideous gash in his side.

The sight of the wound horrified her.

If he hadn’t been Elven, it would have crippled him.

As it was the pain had to be horrendous and yet he stood there, leaning on his sword.

Colath staggered and sank slowly to the ground, blood running down his chest from the jagged cuts there.

Beyond him, Jareth was huddled on hands and knees whooping and coughing as he tried to breathe around damaged ribs.

There was another, though, who fared even worse.

“Jalila!” Ailith said and ran to the fallen Elf.

The tall female Elf was breathing but not well. Her golden-brown skin was sallow. There was blood on the tree, from where her head had contacted it, marked where she had slid down its length. Sickened, frightened, Ailith glanced back at the others. Elon was bleeding badly, his hand to the tear in his side, trying to stem the flood. That terrible wound wrenched at her but Jalila… Her injuries were grievous.

Even Elves could die.

Everyone said she had magic, that’s what she’d been told. The lights in her mind were proof of it. Well, the light that was Jalila had grown dim. Not the way Ailith’s father’s had but dim all the same. She knelt next to her friend, her heart aching.

No. She was only trying to help. I should be able to do something. If I have magic I should be able to do something.

This was something she’d never done and yet she had to try.

Elon couldn’t, it was clear. There was that terrible wound in his side.

Her heart twisted. Jalila and the dimming light in her mind.

Ailith reached but for what she didn’t know.

Nothing happened, she couldn’t feel anything.

She leaned over, put her hand on the earth, on the ground. Took Jalila’s hand.

Please.

Something answered.

A surge of energy, a rush of power.

It flowed up through her hand, as if her fingers were roots. Energy poured into her and through her.

She was the channel.

There was a right Jalila and this one. Bones were broken and muscles were torn, blood flowed and then somehow they were coming back together again, knitting. It was like listening to music, a music she knew, one she remembered. Like the music she’d heard when she was sick. At first it was discordant and then it flowed in harmony once again.

Beneath her hand, Jalila gasped.

Her eyes opened, dark golden-brown, hazy at first but then clearing.

Sitting back, Ailith took her hand away. The music faded but harmony had been restored.

“The drows,” Jalila said, weakly and struggled to right herself.

Gently, Ailith pushed her back. “Gone. It’s all right. Stay there, I’ll be back.”

The bond, Colath thought, as pain echoed through him and looked at Elon.

Elon, with the rip in his side, his shirt torn, and blood.

The pain was terrible.

Elon hunched over his wound, trying to stay upright as he looked around to assess the damage to himself and the others. The wound in his side was severe, more so for the exertion. He knew that. If nothing else, he could feel it in the concern that came through the true-friend bond with Colath and by the look in his eyes.

“Let me,” Ailith said as she ducked under his arm to give him support.

Wrapping an arm around him, she held him up.

Startled, Elon glanced down as he sensed the flow of Healing magic.

There was a harmony to it, to her magic, almost a scent and a taste, like flowers, the soft aroma carried on a gentle breeze.

All unexpectedly, there was a Healer in their midst.

“Ailith…”

A rush of emotion raced through her, he could feel it through that connection.

“Let me do this,” she said. “Just please let me do this.”

He took a breath, the first without pain since the drow had struck him. “If it means so much.”