“You’re really looking forward to this adventure, aren’t you? You’re not going to mind at all, giving up these creature comforts.” He waved his hands to indicate the sumptuous room.
“No, I don’t mind.” She took a bracelet from him and, eyeing him mischievously, slid it onto her wrist, hiding it inside the cuff of the expensive leather riding jacket.
He considered the packs on the bed only a moment longer, then decided. “All right, I’ll go with you.”
‘What?”
“You can tarry a little longer while I pack. I don’t see why we have to sneak away in the middle of the night anyway,” he said over his shoulder as he started for the door.
“Perhaps you’d like to leave the castle after a hearty breakfast tomorrow morning, announcing to all within earshot that you’re off to join the followers of the heretic Igraine?” she called after him.
He paused at the door, grinned at her, excitement beginning to shine in his eyes. “Don’t forget to pack food.”
Bedraggled, bloody, beaten, the remnants of the guard of Clan Redienhs rode into the rocky gorge. Afternoon sun beat down on them, reflected warmth back from the red, rocky walls on both sides of the wide trail. In unspoken agreement, they slowed their pace once the group was within the gorge, out of the forest.
Riding near the front of the group, Daria glanced back, making sure her brother was also clear of the trees. She shivered, remembering tree limbs crackling with energetic movement, vines writhing across the ground, reaching for her. In the depths of her worst nightmares, she had never dreamt of such horror!
Raell had stayed near her, once the attack began, even though he was a swordsman and she an archer. He considered himself protecting his younger sister. It had almost cost him his life. When the forest had come alive… Despite the warmth of the sun, she pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders. She clutched the silver clasp, etched with the condor symbol of Sargonnas, at her throat. They were both lucky to be alive.
She was so engrossed, she noticed the agitation in the ranks only when Raell galloped up beside her. “What’s going on?” she asked, suddenly noticing the movement ahead.
“Look!” He pointed toward the end of the gorge, at the brightly colored troops coming to meet them, flags with the colors of Clan Signet flying snappily above, one flag in particular, with the logo of the clan leader on it. “Reinforcements!”
Reinforcements. That meant turning back, perhaps another battle. The idea of more fighting didn’t bother her. The thought of riding back into the forest did.
The shadow detached itself from high up in the tree and scuttled quickly to the ground, dropping sometimes as much as two feet from branch to branch. The humans on the floor of the hillside gasped each time the girl let go of a handhold, each time she caught. Eadamm grinned as she paused on the last branch, dangling precariously several feet from the ground.
“Stop showing off,” he called with pretend gruff-ness. “Tell me what you see.”
She dropped the last ten feet and landed with a bone-jarring thud. “Two or three new companies of Ogres, wearing yellow, with a shiny star here,” she sketched a square above her left breast. “What was left of the other group has joined them.”
“Clan Signet,” Eadamm interjected. “What are they doing?”
She smiled. “Camping.”
Eadamm’s lips stretched back in a feral grimace. His teeth were white against his dark skin. “We’ll attack at dusk.”
“I don’t see why we should attack at all,” Jeb, one of Eadamm’s generals, protested. “We’re free. We’re less than three days’ ride from the plains. From home!”
Eadamm resettled a stolen Ogre sword more firmly around his hips. Though some of the others wore stolen Ogre finery, he’d refused to wear even a cloak from his former masters. He wore a blanket, with armholes slashed in it, over his torn and stained slave garments. “And how long do you think you’ll be free if we do nothing to stop the Ogres. Perhaps you’d live out your life a free man. But what of our people? If we don’t stop the Ogres, they’ll just kidnap new slaves and start over.”
Jeb peered at him. “You just want to protect your old master!”
Eadamm started to retort, but instead shrugged. “Again, if we don’t, how will we ever be secure in our homes? Igraine’s followers must persevere. For our safety.”
Jeb looked at the plans Eadamm had been sketching in the hard ground. “I don’t agree”
“You don’t have to stay with us if you don’t want to,” Eadamm said gently.
Jeb straightened, his hand going to the dagger tucked into his belt before he realized Eadamm meant no offense. For a long moment, he regarded his friend. “I have nowhere to go. But do we have to attack in the dark?”
“It won’t be any darker than it was in the mines. Until we’re ready for light,” he added cryptically.
Eadamm was right. Perhaps to the Ogres, who had not toiled in darkness for years, it was night. To him, even in the wee hours before dawn, that darkest time before sunrise, the craggy canyon in which the Ogre troops had chosen to sleep was plainly visible. The crags and sheer faces of the canyon walls were shadowed and spooky, but the tents of the Ogre troops were outlined sharply.
The blades of Ogre swords flashed in the moonlight as the humans swept down on the camp, pouring into it from both ends, cutting off any chance of retreat. Eadamm’s people carried stolen weapons and homemade ones-lovely swords of elven design taken from some rich estate, pikes hand carved from elm wood and capped with hand-hammered metal, axes stolen right out of firewood, hoes and rakes and scythes still smelling of grain fields.
Eadamm led the first charge, riding at the front of his people. The sounds were overpowering; screams of rage and vengeance about to be realized echoed off the canyon walls. It surged in his blood, fueling his battle lust. He met his first opponent, a wild-eyed sentry, and cut him down with one quick slash.
The Ogre response to the attack was sluggish but fierce. Attacked from two sides, they poured out of the tents, leapt from their blankets to meet Eadamm’s troops.
Shrieks and death cries filled the air. Sword rang out against sword, pike against pike. Over the din of weapons striking each other, Eadamm could hear an Ogre commander trying to rally his archers. Eadamm wheeled and charged in the direction of the voice. The Ogre had the presence of mind to send an arrow whizzing past Eadamm’s ear before he was cut down.
The humans torched the Ogre tents, sending up an eerie light, which cast their shadows, several times enlarged, dancing on the canyon walls.
The Ogres, caught in disarray, rallied quickly, forming pockets of resistance against which the humans battered. They grabbed up shields and pikes and fought back-to-back, protecting the archers, who rained arrows down on the humans. The arrows flew up and out of the circles of Ogres, appearing as if by magic.
Again and again, Eadamm’s people rushed the lines, skewered an Ogre here, one there. But again and again, the humans were repelled.
Stragglers, caught too far away to join in the protective circles, fought hand to hand, silhouetted against the flames. Humans picked up bows and quivers of arrows and picked off those Ogres who thought they could climb up the canyon walls to safety.
For sheer ferocity, the humans equaled the larger, better-equipped Ogres. In sheer force, they were no match. For each human killed, Eadamm felt the decimation to his numbers. For each Ogre who fell, another stepped forward to take his place.