Chapter Thirty-Three—Falling Swords

Growling, Ali yelled, “Why did I suggest coming here?”

“Stop whining!” Shiro hissed. “They are coming!” The shouting battle cries from within the rocky clefts came from a few dozen men at least. Shiro stepped up the path. “Come on, Ali!”

The clefts here were particularly arduous, making the passes narrow. An excellent place for an ambush—even Shiro knew that much.

“Whoa!” Ali cried from behind him. “They’re throwing rocks from above!”

Shiro glanced up the rocky sides of the pass, but saw nothing, his attention suddenly distracted as two men came down from a path breaking off toward their left. He stepped forward and met their blades, knocking their swords aside and slashing them across the chests. They cried out and died on the cold ground.

“Watch out!” Ali called again. “Rocks. From above!”

Shiro turned around. “Where is Debaku?”

“I don’t know!”

The path was still tricky here with the incline. Shiro went forward, questing for men to kill just as more appeared. The Urutai warrior at the front lifted a short bow and loosed an arrow at him.

Shiro moved, the shaft missing him by inches as another swordsman came at him. He parried the strike, the force of his opponent’s blow causing him to lose balance. He fell down against the incline.

As the warrior lifted his blade, screaming with the intent to kill Shiro, his arm was suddenly taken off, a burst of blood gushing forth after Ali struck him.

Then he saw the bowman behind Ali. “Look out! Archer!”

“Oh shit!” Ali hissed and jumped onto the ground, the shaft head scraping into the rocks next to them.

Suddenly Debaku jumped into the path from above and cut the archer down. Turning, he gestured to them. “Come!”

Then the Black Cobra disappeared in the mist.

“I’m glad he is on our side, Shiro.”

Shiro grunted as he got back up and pursued Debaku—wherever he went. The paths up here broke apart in several directions.

“Which way?” Ali asked.

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but we should stick together—it sounds like they are behind us now.”

“The camels,” Shiro said. “They are stealing our things.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Ali spat. “So we have to kill them all now.”

“No,” Shiro said, grunting as they pressed on up the path. There was a steep incline—steeper than the path as a whole. He had to use the craggy outcroppings of rock to haul himself up. “I think it’s leveling off up here!”

There were men in the distance, their forms hard to make out through the mist, but Shiro was able to make out five men. “Come on!” He called, and turned to assist Ali up the incline. Ali grabbed Shiro’s hand and almost pulled Shiro down when he yanked on his arm in an attempt to haul himself up, but Shiro shook him off as an attacker came in with his sword.

Shiro barely had time to angle his scimitar down toward the ground to block the blow. Without any other recourse, he slammed the top of his head into the man’s nose.

Many of them wore conical helmets of polished steal, but without nose guards, Shiro could still get a good bash in if he had too.

The warrior’s head whipped back and Shiro lashed out with his foot, kicking him in the waste. The Urutai warrior stumbled back into his fellows, but one still managed to press forward. He shouted as he swung his curved sword at Shiro.

He jumped, landed on the hard ground and rolled, then rolled some more to get away from the charging warirror’s attack. Using his momentum, Shiro came back to his feet, his sword raised high in an offensive stance that might give these rushing fighters a moment of pause.

One came in on his right and Shiro arched his blade down and met that sword in a block, just in time to not get his head cut off. Ducking, he narrowing missed the attack and jumped forward, his shoulder taking the fighter in the chest. They both went down, grunting and screaming.

“What are you doing?!” Ali snarled in evident disbelief.

Shiro heard a man behind him die. Ali grunted, swinging his blade, no doubt expertly at the four other men as Shiro wrestled with this one.

Pushing up from the cold ground, he pinned the warrior’s wrist to the rocks, his sword clattering loudly as Shiro punched him in the face. Pulling his fist back, Shiro came in for another punch, but was blocked when his opponent raised his arm.

With his hand loosely grasping his curved sword, Shiro lifted the warrior’s hand and pinned his wrist down, then slammed his palm down over his enclosed fingers. The attack must have pained him greatly, because he snarled, letting go of his blade.

Shiro grabbed it with his left hand and rolled away, coming back to his feet just in time to raise the slender blade in defense of himself against his next attacker.

Metal bit and scrapped as they got locked into a cross.

The man tried to butt him in the head with his helmet, but Shiro whipped his own head back to keep from taking the hit, then let go of his sword so he could bring his hand around to the backside of the attacker’s head. With his momentum in trying to bash Shiro in the face, he lost his balance and fell to the ground. Shiro quickly bent and picked up his sword.

By the time the Urutai warrior recovered, Shiro brought his blade down, but the warrior was quick, raising his own blade at the last instant to block against Shiro’s heavy blow. He proved to be a good fighter by agilely placing his left boot against the backside of the sword to give it support.

But he wasn’t fast enough. Shiro arched his blade back up, taking the man in the elbow. He cried out, dropping his steel.

Without finishing him off, Shiro turned to find Ali fleeing with two enemies behind him. “Shiro!”

Rushing forward, he parried one blade that came down, then side-stepped taking the second lunging attacker in the back. As the man fell, the first whirled to confront Shiro, only to have Ali take him in the back with his scimitar.

But the Abassir, enraged that he had been chased, turned and killed the man Shiro had wounded in the elbow. Surrounded by dead men, both of them breathed heavily. Ali glanced in Shiro’s direction. “So that’s four dead. Only forty to go!”

And then a death cry above them sounded and a body fell heavily to the hard ground.

Ali shrugged. “Or maybe not.”

“Come on!” Shiro called, running further north.

“Where are we going?”

“They—don’t have that many men,” Shiro bellowed between breaths.

“I think forty men is more than enough, Shiro!”

“No,” he said, rushing through the fog. “We can steal their animals.”

“What makes you think they have animals, Shiro?”

Stopping to catch his breath for a moment, Shiro leaned down for a rest as his throat burned from the cold air. Ali did similarly.

“I… do you… see a settlement around here?”

“Aghh!” Ali cried and sucked in more air. “Too… much fog, my infidel…” He breathed heavily and didn’t bother saying the rest.

Shiro was sweating heavily under his heavy cloak, but he dared not take it off. If he couldn’t get back to it and they were left out overnight in the cold, he would surely die.

“Then we will find out,” he said, having gotten most of his breath back. “Come on.”

And then something colorful appeared in the mist ahead, the color of clear water on a hot tropical beach. Sizzling and cracking accompanied whatever it was.

“Oh no,” Ali said, his tone half way between whining and snarling. “They have a mage!”

“Look out!” Shiro called, running to his left as that crackling expanded, then suddenly moved through the air with great speed.

He jumped, landing behind a big white rock as something behind him tore through the air and then exploded behind him. With his hands over his head, his ears throbbed with a sharp pain.

Small rocks and debris fell to the ground all around him. Not knowing for certain, Shiro suspected he had missed that magical attack by a mere pace or two.

“Shiro!” Ali called. “Are you all right?”

“Uh… Hai! Daijobu desu!”

Ali snarled something back that Shiro didn’t quite catch, but he suspected it was a reprimand about speaking the Mikuman language.

“…especially in a fight!”

Shiro shrugged as he got up.