Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (24 page)

  
Lead them??
The concept stunned him for a second, but he was roused by a hoarse shout from behind him. Byorne. Byorne was pointing at him from the shadows.

  
“Do it!” the old ranger called. Do what? Could he mean…

  
Gribly turned back just as the draik charged him. Without waiting for his doom, he turned and ran. The silverguard scattered as the beast chased the Sand Strider across the moonlit circle to the pillars on its edge- in fact, the same pillar where the two youths had sparred the day before.

  
There was still a deposit of sand at its base. Gribly called on it as he ran, and for a brief second the sand shot up into the air in a weak, insubstantial sort of staircase. Leaping up onto one burst of sand, then another, he made it halfway up the column before the draik slammed into the stone under him, toppling it.

  
The young Sand Strider jumped off the last burst of sand just high enough to land with one foot on the roughly broken edge of another pillar. Bellowing in rage at being foiled, the angry draik spit fire up at him for the first time. Leaping higher to the next column, Gribly barely evaded the scalding torrent, the tail of his shirt smoking and sparking.

  
Behind the monster, the silverguard was finally taking action. The bravest one had begun to stab at the thing with his halberd. Infuriated, the draik turned and snapped the end of the weapon off with its teeth. The shivered haft fell from the guard’s limp fingers as he stumbled back, surprised at the brute strength of the beast. Two of his fellows bravely ran up with him, swords drawn, to assist.

  
Perched where he was high above, Gribly had a few precious seconds to peruse the circle. Lauro was quickly proving to be the Pit Strider’s superior at swordplay, but unless the draik could be killed or driven off in the next minute it wouldn’t matter. The five remaining silverguard had hemmed it in, swinging their swords wildly and uttering coarse war-cries in their native tongue, then retreating behind the safety of their enormous shields whenever the monster breathed fire.

  
If I could just get these pillars to fall on it without killing my men,
Gribly thought, glancing around for inspiration. It didn’t even occur to him that he thought of them as his men now.

  
Reaching down with his mind to the bottom of the pillar he crouched on, Gribly attempted to find sand to stride with. Nothing, or not nearly enough to do anything with.

  
One of the silverguard leaped forward to attack the draik and missed his timing; the monster swung a metal-clawed limb and crumpled the man’s armor in like paper. One down, four to go.

  
This has to end in seconds
, Gribly told himself,
or we’re all going to die.
Then he did something incredibly brave and unbelievably stupid. He jumped on the draik’s back.

  
It would have been perfect if he had been wearing some sort of armor, or if the beast was made completely of flesh instead of gears and spikes. It made the roof-jumping thief’s landing awkward as he tried to avoid the sharp metal edges of the draik’s exposed spine, Byorne’s longsword waving wildly in his grip. With a slip and a shout, he tumbled off onto the ground, landing like a cat, the blade sparking as it clanged off the stones.

  
It hadn’t gone as he’d planned, but it had saved the life of a slow-moving silverguard, who now brought his scimitar down across the draik’s neck as it stumbled from the force of Gribly’s landing. Sparks flew and blood spurted from a huge gash, but the unfazed monster batted at the warrior with a paw, sending him head over heels. Then it spun on its haunches and let loose its flaming breath at its unlucky ambusher.

  
But the Sand Strider wasn’t there. Confused, the draik lumbered around to face the three men still moving closer. Then fire and gore erupted at its belly, and it reared up howling in pain. Gribly rolled out from under it, ripping away at its guts with his sword. The guard who’d been knocked out of action jumped forward then, hurling his scimitar right at the monster’s throat. It bounced off one of the metal plates and cut an awkward line across the draik’s unprotected jaw.

  
All four silverguard leaped forward, bashing the creature with their shields and hacking at it with their swords. On its hind legs the draik was twice as tall as any of them, but they bravely fought with every ounce of strength they had.

  
The beast gave a hideous roar and threw itself down on all of them, blowing the men aside with power and flame. It fell heavily forward onto its front legs- right onto Gribly’s blade.

  
He felt a horrible jolt and blood on his face; then the world turned black and the feeling disappeared.

~

  
Lauro had never fought so hard before. It wasn’t immediately apparent, but the prince had the vague notion that his enemy was in much the same position. Heartened by this, Lauro began to experiment.

  
Wind-striding a foot or two higher to gain the advantage of height worked reasonably well. He leaped as if to come at the Pit Strider overhead, then wind-milled his legs to stay aloft, putting his opponent off-balance as he moved to counter a blade that wasn’t there. Lauro would slash and stab from his higher point for a few seconds, then drop quickly out of the air, confusing his enemy once more.

  
Despite his small success, it was no easy fight. The Pit Strider was too occupied to do any striding of his own, but his blade was longer and thinner than Lauro’s, and his greater speed and agility exactly evened the odds. A flash and a clang and the two separated, then spun together again in the deadly dance, all other threats forgotten and ignored.

  
Lauro had often wished for a broadsword or a greatsword like the one his king father carried. He had been disappointed terribly when his first weapon was the streamlined, small thing he carried now. King Larion had said,
A true warrior relies on skill, not strength. This blade is sharp and sturdy, smaller and quicker than any in my own armory. You will need all your lessons to master it, and it will not fail you.

  
Frantically stabbing, then cavorting around and around in a series of complicated thrusts and parries, Lauro found to his utter astonishment that it was true.

  
The continuity of the fight was somewhat jarred when one of the colonnade pillars crashed to the ground with a tremendous
BOOM
. Flicking his gaze to where Gribly was leaping from column to column, Lauro let down his guard no more than an inch. It was enough for the black-robed attacker to get under and knock the sword out of his hand.

  
Reacting faster than he knew how, the prince dove past his opponent’s swing and tackled him head on before he could make use of his weapon. It was a tense few seconds as they grappled, he trying to wrench his enemy’s sword away and his enemy trying to get free enough to stab him. Once the strider threw off his arm and the prince used the space to throw a punch at the man’s chin, snapping back his head and throwing off his hood.

  
Lauro stopped midway through another blow. He
knew
that face! It was paler and meaner and had the wrong hair, but…

  
The Pit Strider spat out a bloody tooth onto the moonlit pavement. Leveling his sword, he rushed forward to pierce the prince through the neck; but the hit he’d taken had clouded his head and made him slow, so Lauro was ready. Ducking, he grabbed at the fool’s arm with his left hand and bulled into his stomach with his right shoulder. The Pit Strider gasped as the wind was knocked out of him and he sailed up and over Lauro’s body to land
smack
down on his back, his pale sword and arm twisted at a nasty angle under him.

  
The prince had no time to gloat. Something horrible had happened over where Gribly and the silverguard battled the enormous draik- the thief was sprawled out in a pool of blood, unconscious next to a dead warrior the monster had trampled as it staggered drunkenly away, Gribly’s sword buried in its gut. Immediately the remaining three guards chased it, slashing and striking in a desperate attempt to bring it down before it fled. Fire burst from its jaws, nostrils and cracks that split the metal plates on its neck and back. Smoke billowed from every aperture and wound.

  
“Blasted demon!” Lauro swore. He turned away to finish off the injured Pit Strider- and found no one. Cursing, the prince spun in a full circle. His opponent was gone! A roar behind him said the draik wasn’t far away. Spinning to face it, he saw the unfortunate Pit Strider loping wildly for Gribly, his sword clutched uneasily under his ruined arm. “No!” the prince bellowed, hurling his sword at the limping man. It missed by a foot, clattering off into the shadows.

  
Suddenly a loud report sounded through the empty night. The Pit Strider stumbled back and to the side, landing on his side in the mucky fire-pit, clutching a bleeding shoulder.

  
Flames leaped up from the once-dead fire, licked all along the Pit Strider’s body, and consumed him in a flash and sparking explosion. Byorne tumbled out of the shadows where he’d been dragged and left for dead, a smoking contraption of wood and metal in his hand. Dropping to his knees, the half-breed swung with his strange weapon at the spot where the black-robed attacker had lain, but to no avail- the Pit Strider had vanished. Whether it was dark magic or Pit Striding or bloody luck, Lauro had no idea- and it wasn’t time to wonder. The draik was still coming.

  
The prince waited until the creature was mere yards from him before skipping backwards and wind-striding. He stepped into the air, ran his feet up in front of him, stretched out to touch one of the pillars with his fingers, then twisted his body until he could push off with his feet, launching him over the head of the demented draik as it lumbered crazily into the column.

  
THUD.
The sound was ugly, but it was nothing compared to the hideous scraping and cracking as the pillar the beast had plowed into broke and fell across it.
CRUNCH.
The draik screamed hellishly as it was pinned and its insides collapsed. As Lauro wind-strode in circles overhead, he saw its eyes explode and spew flaming gunk every which way. One of the pursuing silverguard caught some on his unarmored leg and howled in agony, trying to scrape it off with the end of his shield.

  
Finally the draik expired and stopped moving. A scummy gear popped out of a slash in its neck and rolled to Lauro’s feet as he landed.

  
Then, even more suddenly than it had begun, the attack was over and the only sound was the exhausted breathing of men who have just fought the battle of their lives.

  
Lauro took no time to rest. Calling for the last three guards to help him, he rushed to where Gribly and Byorne both lay close together; the Sand Strider crushed by the dying draik and the ranger bleeding from his mortal wound.

  
Creator save them,
the prince pleaded. This had all gone so horribly, horribly wrong…

~

  
Gribly woke to find he was laid out on a bloodstained cloak, next to the old half-nymph who’d saved his life. Lauro explained in a hushed rush how Byorne had used his mysterious contraption to stop the Pit Strider, and was now dying from the exertion on his wound, which had been bound with a strip of clean cloth but lacked any real treatment.

  
“No, no, no…” the thief trembled, rising to his knees and crawling to the ranger’s side. It was unthinkable- to lose their only ally just as he had begun to mean something… “Byorne,” he called softly, “Can you hear me? Can you feel anything?”