He did not pull back just yet, for he knew that he shot better in a single, fluid motion. Instead, he concentrated on the orcs, as the first dismounted and peered into the forest.
A fireball took the orc in the chest, blasting him into the jungle. More sizzled through the air like meteorites, throwing the column into disarray. Isadora’s team had prepared an ambush.
‘Now!’ Fletcher shouted, as the goblins at the back turned to flee. Two arrows and a bolt thrummed into the heaving creatures, plucking them from their mounts with deadly accuracy.
‘Again,’ Fletcher growled, and another volley followed the first, thumping into cassowary and goblin alike. At the head of the column, the Wendigo burst through the trees, slashing left and right at the two remaining orcs, while fireballs, lightning and kinetic blasts buzzed inaccurately through the air.
Miraculously, a goblin made it past their barrage of arrows, his cassowary hurtling them down the trail, away from the battle. Fletcher shouted a warning.
‘Don’t let him get aw—’ A hurlbat axe whirled through the air and took the cassowary’s right leg off, sending it head over heels. Then Othello erupted from the undergrowth, dispatching goblin and bird with two chops of his battle-axe.
Dozens of goblins shrieked with fury, and thundered towards the exposed dwarf. But a screech from above gave them pause. Lysander hurled himself out of the branches, bowling through the cassowary-riders in a whirlwind of wings and talons. But even as the goblins fell to the ground, the birds kicked and jabbed their beaks, and the Griffin roared with pain.
‘Close in!’ Fletcher ordered, and then he was running, khopesh drawn, heart pounding as hard as his feet did against the ground.
The first goblin swung his club, still dazed from being knocked off his mount. Fletcher parried and reposted, taking the goblin through the sternum and blasting it from the blade with a shot of kinetic energy. Cress’s torq knocked another goblin to the ground, while Sylva decapitated a flailing cassowary with a sweep of her falx. Othello’s hurlbat axes peppered the massed goblins from over Fletcher’s shoulders, thrumming dangerously close to his ears.
It gave Lysander enough time to throw himself back into the air, sprinkling the ground below with droplets of blood. There was no time to assess the Griffin’s injuries, for as the first row of goblins went down, another took its place, lunging at the trio with howls of anger.
‘Back,’ Fletcher gasped, as a club struck his left elbow, leaving his tattooed hand to hang limply by his side. Othello stepped in beside Sylva to protect the right of the trail, while Cress and Fletcher held the left.
Goblins and cassowaries crowded towards the thin line of summoners, spreading out into the jungle in an attempt to flank them. A gout of flame from the undergrowth sent a group of goblins scrambling back, one spinning away and screeching, as Ignatius scrabbled at its face. After one last slash, the Salamander dived back into the bushes, daring the goblins to leave the trail once again.
On the other side, lightning crackled into the massed creatures, downing several and leaving them twitching on the ground. Cress’s demon, Tosk, had joined the battle.
‘Where’s Sariel?’ Fletcher shouted, sweeping his khopesh in a wide arc, and a goblin skittered back with a deep gash along its ribcage. ‘Solomon?’
There was a splintering sound from behind, and half of Fletcher’s question was answered. Tree branches arced overhead, slamming into the snarling goblins, and the guttural roar from behind told Fletcher that Solomon was making use of his great strength.
Then Sariel erupted from the bushes, snatching a cassowary by the legs and dragging it into the greenery. Sylva gasped with pain as the two creatures tore into each other, the crackle of broken branches accompanied by snarls and screeches.
‘Battle-spells,’ Fletcher ordered as the feeling returned to his arm once more. ‘But conserve your mana.’
Sylva’s etching was so fast that he had barely finished his sentence before her fireball buzzed into the nearest goblin, blasting it down to twist and wail on the ground, scrabbling at its chest. More followed from Cress and Othello, while Fletcher whipped a tongue of kinetic energy into the air, sending the few remaining riders tumbling.
Still the goblins pressed in, their gnarled clubs parrying Fletcher’s thinner blade to jar his arm up to the shoulder. A hurled spear sliced past Fletcher’s face. He felt a flash of pain as it caught his cheek, the trickle of hot blood mingled with the sweat pooling at the base of his neck. He shook his head and slashed a goblin across the face in return, sending it spinning away, clutching at its head.