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“Bahzell!”
Gharnal’s frantic shout of warning cut through the tumult and chaos, and Bahzell’s head snapped around as something arced through the air towards him. It looked like a human, but no human ever born could move like that, with such speed and u
But there was no time. The attacker hit the ground and bounced impossibly, flinging itself at Bahzell’s unguarded side, but then an arm flashed out.
Gharnal Uthmagson caught Treharm’s ankle with his left hand, and Krahana’s Servant howled in shocked fury. No mortal he’d ever faced had been quick enough to do that, and certainly none of them had been strong enough. But Treharm had never before faced a hradani who had summoned the Rage, and Gharnal jerked him away from Bahzell with a strength which very nearly equaled his own.
Treharm wrenched around, lashing out with taloned fingers, and chain mail shredded as they ripped through it. Gharnal grunted as they ripped flesh, as well, but his blade came hissing back with all the flashing speed of his Rage, and Treharm howled again as that blue-lit steel sheared through his right arm like an axe.
Panic erupted through the Servant, worse than any physical agony, as his severed arm flew away. That wound would have been mortal—or at least disabling—to any mortal being. But Treharm wasn’t mortal. The lost limb would regrow in time, and the shock which would have paralyzed a living man had virtually no effect on him at all.
No physical effect. Yet there were other forms of shock, and the wound was a terrifying warning that perhaps he was mortal still, after all. He squealed, twisting and slashing with his remaining arm, striking out at Gharnal in a desperate frenzy, and Bahzell’s foster brother’s spine arched as a supernaturally powerful hand punched straight through his breastplate and drove deep into his chest. Ribs splintered and their fragments stabbed jagged ends into his lungs and heart.
Gharnal was a dead man in that moment, but he was also a sword of Tomanak, and a hradani exalted by the power of the Rage. He didn’t fall, and Treharm had a final, flashing instant to gawk in disbelief, his left fist closed upon the beating heart of his foe, before Gharnal’s blade came slashing up in one last, perfect stroke and Treharm’s head went flying away into the night.
“No!“
Jerghar screamed in denial. Not because he cared about Treharm’s fate, but because Treharm’s death meant he’d lost two-thirds of his fellow Servants, and with them, their power. And because if Layantha and Treharm could be killed, then so could he.
A dreadful premonition of doom echoed through him, and panic urged him to flee. But the greater terror of Krahana overruled his panic. Tomanak and his champion might destroy Jerghar, but if he fled Krahana would do far worse than that. And so he stayed nailed to his hilltop, watching the swirling confusion of combat crunch towards him.
Brandark’s war horse screamed again, this time in agony, as a shardohn exploded up under the Bloody Sword’s guard and ripped out his mount’s throat. The stallion went down, collapsing in blood-spouting ruin, and Brandark kicked frantically clear of the stirrups. He hit hard, but he managed somehow to hang onto his sword, and he rolled upright almost instantly.
Yet fast as he was, he wasn’t quite fast enough. The same shardohn which had killed his horse sprang at his own throat, and two more came at him from the sides.
The first met a deadly thrust that drove a foot of steel through its belly. It shrieked in agony, folding up around the blade, snapping at it with its wolfish fangs, and he wrenched the sword free in a spattering fan of blood and whirled to face the shardohn flashing in from his right. The blood and venom-streaked steel came down with all the elegance of a cleaver, driven by the desperate strength of an arm almost as a mighty as Bahzell’s own … and the ferocious precision of the Rage. It crunched through the shardohn’s spine, just behind the shoulders, and the shardohn collapsed with a scream. It was back up in a moment, scrabbling forward on its forelegs, yet its crippled hindquarters dragged uselessly behind, and it was too slow to reach him.
But if it could not, the third demon could. It flung itself on Brandark’s shoulders, ripping and tearing at the backplate of the Bloody Sword’s cuirass. Steellike fangs snarled and savaged their way across the armor, gouging viciously at it, and he twisted his shoulders frantically, trying to hurl the creature off even as he wrenched around to face it.
For a moment, he almost succeeded, but then the shardohn lunged again, and Brandark grunted in anguish as envenomed jaws punched spikelike teeth through the left arm of his haubergeon. The shardohn’s fangs pierced the tough, dwarf-forged rings effortlessly, mangling muscle and crushing bone, and its dreadful, baying howl of triumph vibrated agonizingly into his flesh. It tasted his life force, sucking at it even as its poison flooded into him, and it knew he was his.
But he was a hradani, tougher than any other prey the creature had ever taken. And he was empowered by the Rage, with all the terrible, driving energy of his people’s ancient curse. And he was Brandark Brandarkson. No champion of Tomanak he, no servant of the War God’s order. Only a man who had longed to be a bard … only a poet who had faced greater demons at Bahzell’s side and spat defiance in the face of Hell.
He snarled through the icy fury of the Rage, feeling his strength flooding into the shardohn, and twisted his shoulders. He bared his teeth at the soaring spike of agony as broken bone and torn muscle shifted in the creature’s maw, and the shardohn’s howl of triumph wavered as it felt itself being dragged around. It tried to release its grip, but it was caught, its fangs trapped in shredded chain mail and its victim’s very flesh. It couldn’t escape as Brandark shortened his right arm, raised his left arm from the shoulder, suspending the shardohn’s full, heavy weight from his shattered upper arm, and drove his blade home. It rammed into the “wolf’s” belly, and he twisted his wrist, disemboweling the creature.
The shardohn squealed, fighting and bucking with the agony of its wound, heaving until—finally!—its fangs ripped free of its victim. It landed on all fours, flinging its head up in torment … and Brandark’s sword came down on the back of its neck like an axe.
The shardohn fell, and Brandark thudded to his knees, left arm hanging limp, as pain and blood loss, poison and the icy suction of his soul pulled him down at last. His sword sagged and his head drooped, and yet another shardohn sprang for his throat. He tried to get his blade up, eyes glaring with the defiant fire of his Rage even from the lip of the grave, but his ripped and bleeding body had given all that even a hradani’s could. He couldn’t raise the weapon in time, and he watched the shardohn’s fangs glisten with emerald corruption as they came for him.
And then a daggered battleaxe, its blade shrouded in cleansing blue flame, came smashing down like a thunderbolt.
“Tomanak! Tomanak!“
Hurthang was there, his axe blazing like a beacon, and Brandark collapsed at last.
Bahzell’s heart twisted as he saw Gharnal collapse over the body of his killer, saw Hurthang standing astride Brandark’s body while the howling pack converged upon him. But there was no time for grief, no room for fear. Gharnal and Brandark were not the only brothers he had lost this night, and the dying was far from over. And yet …