Bearers of the Black Staff

Then he used all of his considerable strength to heave the first beast clear and used the weapon a second time.

He looked around quickly, the barrel of the flechette sweeping the darkness. Nothing else appeared, although he could hear more baying in the distance. There was no hiding now. They would have to stand and fight.

“Inside!” he ordered the girl, gesturing toward the ruins.

She leapt to obey and they hastened through the maze of walls, working their way deep into the cluster of buildings. They were still several hundred yards from the safety of the fortress, but they might reach it if nothing else slowed them down. He found himself laboring as he ran, which surprised him. Then he glanced down and saw the blood soaking his left leg. The first hound had managed to savage it, ripping through the leathers and body armor.

He was bleeding freely, and he could feel the muscles tightening up. He knew what that meant.

Don’t think about it!

Guttural cries rose from behind them. Trolls. They had discovered the bodies of the Skaith Hounds. Fresh baying rose and died. It was suddenly silent save for the sound of his breathing and their footfalls. The girl was keeping pace, darting this way and that through the debris, negotiating their passage effortlessly. It made him smile for just a moment. She was a keeper. He’d wondered a moment earlier why he had let himself get into this mess, but now he decided he knew.

Arrows flew past his head, and then one buried itself in his back. But the leathers and the armor stopped its penetration. He snatched at the girl, pulling her down behind a wall just ahead, and he turned, swinging up the barrel of the flechette. He fired three times, booming coughs that ruptured the stillness and ended a handful of lives in seconds. Without pausing to consider the number of dead, he was up and running anew, pulling the girl after him.

“There’s more!” she screamed, just as several bodies vaulted a low wall to their left, spears thrusting. They missed the girl, but skewered him, shoulder and leg both. He killed his attackers quickly, efficiently. He bent down and broke off the spearheads and pulled free the shafts. It cost him something to do that, but he didn’t hesitate or shy away from it.

Bleeding now from several wounds, he backed away with the girl behind him, watching the darkness. “Anything?” he asked her.

“No. They’ve fallen back. But not far.”

Of course, not far. They had him now. Her, too, if he didn’t do something about it. Then all this would have been for nothing.

He dropped behind another wall and knelt close to her. “I want you to go on ahead without me. Don’t argue. You have to reach the fortress and open the door for me. I won’t have time for that once I catch up. The locks are hidden. But I can show you how to find them. Listen carefully.”

He told her where to go and what to do. He made sure she understood. He sketched a quick map in the dirt, which showed her the route she must follow. “Go now,” he told her.

She shook her head, the first time she had questioned him. “I can stay and help …”

“You don’t have a weapon, and you don’t have fighting skills. You’ll only slow me down if I have to worry about protecting you. Here, take this.”

He handed her a Flange automatic, a twelve-shot handgun he had recovered from its hiding place about five years back and restored to working order. He showed her how to use it—how to release the safety, how to hold the weapon steady, how to fire it once or multiple times. “Just in case,” he told her.

She nodded once, and then she was off, sprinting away into the darkness. Good girl, he thought. She knew, but she wasn’t making a mistake by saying so, by staying to argue. He respected her for that. She was worth saving. Sider hadn’t made a mistake in asking his help.

He turned back to the darkness, listening for sounds of approaching Trolls. An attack was inevitable, but it might not come right away. He backed into the ruins a little farther, searching the walls and doorways for the right spot. He found it finally, a corner slot formed by adjoining walls beneath a deep overhang. They could only get at him from in front.

He braced himself against the walls once he was concealed in the shadows, reloaded the flechette, and propped the spray up next to him. Then he looped a cord around the firing pins of three of the flash-bangs and fastened them to his chest armor where they could be easily reached. He set two more of the explosive devices on a protruding stone on his left, then changed his mind and moved them to another on the right. His left arm wasn’t working well enough to do anything more than brace the stock of whatever weapon he was holding. When the attack came, he would have to move quickly.