Lorn stood next to his wife with a stout boar spear in hand. As Rafela nocked another arrow, a feurog rushed forward, attempting to catch her unawares. Lorn lunged, spearing the monster in the chest. He shoved the body backward and jerked his spear free. Just behind the baker, the willowy Edrea and her husband Greusik were trying to fend off three feurog with a cornette knife and a cobbler’s hammer.
Seeing a chance to help, Annev dashed forward and hacked into the nearest monster’s unprotected throat. It fell back in a gurgle of blood and the other two beasts whirled to face him. The first swung a spiny stone limb at Annev’s head. He dodged, ducked, and brought his sword to bear, chinking his fiery blade against the sharp stone tines covering the monster’s back. It howled in anger, and Annev replied by raking his sword down the monster’s spine. The thing screeched, arching its back and exposing its soft belly. Before Annev could capitalise on the weakness, though, the third feurog rushed him. Annev dodged, spinning away from an iron claw, then swung back and slammed his sword into the gut of his previous adversary. The stony feurog thrashed as the magic flames ate at its flesh, and Annev sawed the undulating blade upward, seeking out the monster’s heart. He twisted and the thing convulsed then died.
Annev yanked his sword free and spun towards the final feurog that had been steadily creeping up on him. Dark bands of iron ore woven with stone-hardened flesh protected the monster’s face and vitals. As he held it off, Annev noticed Greusik approaching the monster from behind. The cobbler stepped to within a foot of the feurog and lifted his hammer.
Annev shook his head, trying not to draw the feurog’s attention to the cobbler, but Greusik was already bringing the tool down on the creature’s skull. The monster’s metal-plated head rang with the force of the blow, and his eyes rolled backward. Instead of dropping to the ground, though, the feurog spun, gave an inhuman screech of rage, and slapped the hammer from the stunned cobbler’s hand.
Annev stabbed at its back, searching for a weakness in its plating. Instead, the tip of his sword went skittering away, deflected by the beast’s metal skin.
The iron monster reached out and wrapped its thick, clawed fingers around Greusik’s throat. The cobbler’s mouth opened in a wordless scream while the feurog squeezed, shaking Greusik’s neck until his eyes turned red with blood. Edrea screamed and Annev slashed out again, and again, and again. The monster twisted beneath the blows, shying away from the heat of the sword, but kept its hands firmly wrapped around Greusik’s neck. Annev stabbed low, aiming for the feurog’s kidneys, but they were girded in ore and iron just like the rest. He slashed at the monster’s grey feet instead, at his legs and arms, at his neck and head.
The monster tossed Greusik’s limp body aside and strode purposefully for Edrea.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The cobbler’s widow held her cornette knife in front of her, shaking, weeping openly as the metal creature wrapped its iron claws around her throat.
‘NO!’ Annev shouted. He dashed forward, forcing his sword between Edrea and the feurog, and hacked at the monster’s face.
The feurog blinked, blinded by the flames. Its hands released their prey, seeking out Annev’s sword, and Edrea wisely took her chance to flee.
Before the creature could grip the flamberge, Annev spun away and stabbed. His blade skittered across the monster’s nose, scything off a tip of callused flesh and making the creature roar in irritation. At that same moment, Annev lunged again, plunging his fiery blade down the feurog’s open mouth. The metal monster choked on blood and fire, but still he pushed on, driving himself against Annev’s blade in an attempt to reach the one-armed Master of Sorrows. Annev twisted the sword, forcing it farther down the monster’s gullet as it raged, reached out its twisted arms, and tried to seize him. When the mineral-knotted limbs failed to reach their goal, the creature settled for grasping the two feet of steel protruding from its maw. Its clawed hands gripped the flaming blade, attempting to snap the sword in half.
Annev’s left arm began to tingle. He tightened his grip on the hilt of the flamberge and concentrated on the blue-white flame surrounding it. As he did so, he tried to recall what it had been like to activate and expand Mercy’s magic, causing the air around the blade to sharpen: he remembered the cleaved corner of Sodar’s table, the rock he had split in half, the gouge he had unwittingly carved into the ground. Holding tightly to those memories, he returned his focus to the flames of his sword and imagined them growing hotter, sharper, more intense.
The feurog tightened his grip on the sword blade and flexed. The metal began to bow.
Burn, Annev thought, seizing the stillness within him. Melt. Die!
The flames surged and the feurog’s metal fingers fell from his hands, cleanly severed at the point where they gripped the flamberge. The monster screamed, and blood and molten metal boiled out of its mouth.
Annev jerked the sword downward and the white-hot blade sizzled through the feurog’s maw, burning through its iron ribcage and spilling the creature’s mineral-hardened vitals across the earth. With a sigh, the demon toppled backward, dead.
Yes! Annev spun back to Edrea, only to see that he was too late: the woman’s slender frame lay unmoving atop her husband’s body, her throat cut by a passing feurog who had since disappeared among those battling Lorn and Fyn.
Annev turned to look for Titus, cursing. Where did we fail? he wondered. How did they break through? He saw the small steward engaged with a maddened feurog that kept smashing itself against the boy’s enchanted buckler. Titus’s shield rang with the sounds of sparks and steel, yet the monster continued to slam its hatchet-shaped fists into it, the magic somehow less potent in Titus’s hands. The steward took a step back and readjusted his shield arm, focused on the one feurog rather than the others swarming at the edge of the crowd.
We’re losing. Annev looked down at the bodies of Greusik and Edrea and felt defeated. I’m no more of a tactician than Fyn. There’s too many of them, and we’re tiring.
Tiring.
The word rekindled a memory: ‘I always tire before you,’ he’d said to Sodar, ‘None of this is fair.’
‘You knew that when we started, so it was fair enough. You should have pressed me early and taken away my advantage. You need to end the fight before it starts. Understand?’
He understood.
Annev lifted the flaming-white flamberge and fell into Crouching Wolf. He leapt into the air, his magicked boots propelling him higher and farther than humanly possible, and landed amidst the attacking crowd of feurog.
The monsters circled him, surprised by the lone human separated from the pack. The three feurog who had been targeting Titus pulled back, drawn to this more vulnerable target.
Annev let his mind expand. His arm began to tingle once more and, instead of ignoring it or passively observing it, he embraced it. Energy flowed into his body, strength filled his limbs, and his mind opened up to the magic he was holding.