The Steel Remains

He closed the last two yards of space himself, sprang in and swung the Ravensfriend like a scythe. He never knew if the blood ploy worked or not, the dwenda blocked him with the haft of the ax, danced out to the side, and stabbed in with the short-sword. Ringil took it on the shield, grunted with the impact, went to one knee to get his sword free of the ax lock and swung back again, savagely, at shin height. He hit something; the dwenda stumbled, but the blade didn’t seem to have cut through.

Shit.

The ax whistled down. He flung himself inelegantly aside, tumbled on the street and rolled. Lost the Ravensfriend in the mud. The dwenda came at him, making some high-pitched barking sound he didn’t like at all. At the last moment, he swung one booted leg up and unleashed a kick as his opponent rushed in. The dwenda yelped and staggered. The ax wavered, the sword drooped. Ringil got his feet under him, dropped his shield and launched himself, bellowing, crooked hands spread and grasping for the dwenda’s weapons. He got a grip on the ax haft and the sword-hand wrist, and he thrust himself chest-to-chest with the creature and unleashed a savage head-butt full into the blank helmet.

It was pure krinzanz, the black, cackling will to do harm unleashed and squirming up out of the deepest recesses of his heart with no thought for consequence. He staggered back and sideways from the blow, helmet knocked aslant, head ringing, but his hand was locked around the ax haft and it came with him. The dwenda shook its head dizzily, seemed not to know where he was. He hefted the ax in both hands and swung, a deep, wide-stance blow the Dragonbane would have cheered. The ax bit deep into the dwenda’s chest and it screamed. He tugged it loose, hewed again, as if into a tree. Aldrain blood flew in the dark, he caught the fresh scent of it. He brought the ax up over his head with a wild yell and slammed it down on the dwenda’s head.

The helmet split, the ax jammed in the fissure, buried a handbreadth deep. Ringil let go and watched as the dwenda took three tottering sideways steps, lifted one hand to touch its head as if in wonder, and collapsed with a long, grinding moan. Ringil looked to see if it would move again, panting and swaying a little himself, then when it didn’t, he cast about, found the Ravensfriend and his shield lying in the mud, and picked them up. His head was beginning to hurt as the initial numbness of the butt wore off. He tried to resettle the helmet a little more evenly on his head, found that the nose guard had slipped and gouged into the lower half of his cheek.

He saw the boy—he’d utterly forgotten him in the fight—watching him, frozen where he stood about ten feet away, wide-eyed with not much less terror than he’d had of the dwenda. Ringil shook his head and found himself laughing, an insane, dribbling little chuckle.

“Dragonbane’s right,” he said vaguely. “They fall down just like men.”

The boy’s eyes shifted, left over Ringil’s shoulder, and he darted away like a spooked deer. Ringil swung about and found himself facing one of Rakan’s soldiers. Relief stabbed through him.

“Ah. How you doing?”

The man made a noise. He was wounded all over, but none of it looked too bad. He still had his shield, but it was buckled and split, and he was down to a long knife for a weapon. Ringil turned and pointed, still breathing heavily.

“See that ax? If you can get it out of that motherfucker’s head, it’s yours. Then we’ll go see what’s going on at the blockhouse. Okay?”

The Throne Eternal stared at him. “They, they . . .” He gestured wildly over his shoulder. “They’re fucking everywhere, man.”

“I know. And they glow in the dark, too.” Ringil clapped him on the shoulder. “Should make it easy, huh?”

EGAR CAME THROUGH THE BLOCKHOUSE DOOR WITH BITS OF DWENDA intestine on both blades of the staff lance, just in time to see Archeth stabbed to the floor. Fury detonated through him like an instant high fever. He yelled, berserker shrill and full, and leapt in on the two dwenda without thought. The first turned just in time to get the lance blade through the belly. The second stumbled back a step, as if from an actual blow, then came in swinging its sword. Remorseless, Egar drove the impaled dwenda back until it tripped over Archeth’s body. He caught the swing of the other’s blade on the lance shaft and kicked its legs summarily out from under it. He leaned hard on the embedded end of the lance, twisted the shaft back and forth, and the wounded dwenda screamed in his helmet and thrashed. Egar judged the damage well enough done, jerked the lance free, crouched and swung about to face the other dwenda just as it climbed back to its feet.

“You want to die, too? Come on then, motherfucker.”