Bastial Steel (25 page)

Raymess looked back and forth between Cleve and Vala. He tried to mouth words, but only a murmur came out.

“Louder,” Kasko told him, shoving him with the sole of his boot.

Raymess tried to stand, only to receive a kick from Kasko.

“Stay down!”

Cleve started toward Kasko, but he squeezed his grip harder on Vala. She let out a scream.

“Get back, fool. Get back! This is your last chance or I will cut her.”

The mookers were right outside their window now—Cleve could hear them.

Lysha held out her palms. “Calm yourself, Kasko.”

Kasko ignored her, switching his focus back to Raymess. “Answer me. Do you understand that if Cleve doesn’t die, he’s allowing your mother to be killed?”

Raymess licked his parched lips with the very tip of his tongue, as if the effort alone was too much to bear. He nodded at Kasko.

“Good.” Kasko smiled again, changing his focus to Cleve.

Jek was at the window now, barring it with Sartious Energy. “Lysha’s not going to do it.” He spoke softly as he worked. “Even if Cleve tells her to.”

“It’s true,” Lysha said. “No one’s going to go along with this plan. If Vala dies, then it’s purely your fault.”

Cleve felt even more dread when Kasko’s grin only widened. “You really think Danvell Takary will forgive you three when he hears what happened? Think about it. Bastial hell, you’re idiots if you don’t realize all of your lives are over if you allow me to kill Vala instead of Cleve.”

Cleve glanced at Lysha, finding a disquieting lack of confidence in her eyes as she stared at Kasko. Next he turned to Jek. The mage had finished with the window, his glance now fallen to the ground. Neither of them would look at Cleve.

Is this what my life has come to?
He tried to find some solace in the idea that Kasko would be killed shortly after he was, but it didn’t make his despair any more bearable.

“Lysha,” Cleve said, waiting for her to look at him before continuing. He put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s right. There will be no life after this for the three of us if I don’t agree to his terms.”

Cleve slowly started toward the knife she’d thrown down. Keeping his gaze on Kasko, he said, “I’m going to pick up this weapon and give it to her.”

“Keep moving slowly or I kill Vala.”

“Cleve, don’t do this.” Jek’s tone was pleading. “This is a stupid decision, and there’s no way for me to support it. We told each other we wouldn’t do something like this without support from each other.”

“I’m sorry, Jek. And tell Jessend I’m sorry as well.”

Cleve handed the knife to Lysha, but she wouldn’t take it. He stepped closer to her, leaning in to whisper, “Take it by the blade and hold it steady.”

She did.

Keeping his voice low so no one else could hear, he said, “When I say ‘go,’ use psyche to tell Vala to get out of the way as best she can.”

Lysha’s eyes opened wider. Her neck stiffened with a nod. Cleve stepped back and lifted his chin, exposing his neck.

“Do it!” Kasko screamed.

Again, the mookers’ dialogue started up. There was even some tapping on the walls.

“Go,” Cleve told Lysha.

She shot her palm forward at Vala behind him. Meanwhile, Cleve grabbed the knife by the handle, spun around, and threw it where he remembered Kasko to be.

It all happened in a blink—Vala fell to her knees, Kasko lunged downward after her, and Cleve’s Bastial steel knife struck the small man in the shoulder.

It caused Kasko to stop for a heartbeat, staggering back with a scream. Jek let loose a fireball. It was small, the size of a fist. But it did strike Kasko in the chest.

Vala was on her hands and knees shrieking, crawling away as quickly as possible. Kasko was yelling as well, scrabbling forward after her, nearly tripping in his dazed state. Though, he was on target, his knife held in the air.

Cleve jumped forward, grabbed his sword off the ground, and sliced off Kasko’s head in one smooth motion.

It only caused Vala’s shrieking to grow louder, mixed now with manic crying.

Raymess was unconscious again. Vala crawled over to hold his head in her hands for a breath, then maneuvered herself around his back to rest him upright against her.

The mookers outside seemed to have figured out there were Humans in the cabin. They were shouting and pounding on the walls. One broke the window and was trying to smash its way through Jek’s Sartious barrier of two crossed planks. Another jumped up to join it.

Lysha loosed an arrow and hit one in the shoulder. It fell back with a shout. The other one snarled and jumped off before she could shoot it.

Pounding picked up at the door. Cleve saw that Jek had filled the gap between the door and its frame with Sartious Energy, but green flakes were flying from it as the shaking became more violent. Jek pointed his wand to repair the unending damage.

Cleve’s attention shot to the ceiling as the scraping of claws threatened to break through the wood above them.

Vala Takary was helping Raymess up. Cleve ran over to help, throwing the Prince’s arm over his shoulder and using one arm to hold on to him while the other held his sword firm and ready for any mookers that broke through.

“Will the
we are peaceful
dance work?” Cleve asked.

“Not at this point,” Lysha answered, keeping her bow aimed at the window. Two more mookers jumped up, grabbing onto the Sartious bars and trying to pry them off. Lysha let down her bow and ran to them with her dagger out, jabbing each one in the finger to make them let go and drop. Three more jumped up in their place.

“Jek!” Lysha shouted as she swiped at them with her Bastial dagger.

He waved his wand to repair the bars that were barely managing to keep the mookers from coming in through the window.

“We’d better come up with something soon,” Jek said through heavy breaths. “I can’t keep this up too much longer.”

“We can’t fight through hundreds of mookers.” Lysha’s tone was urgent, desperate. Cleary, she had no ideas. Hearing her made Cleve’s mind work twice as fast. If she wasn’t going to figure something out, then he would.

“I’m faster than they are, just barely,” he said. “Make an opening in the roof with your strongest fireball, Jek. I’ll pull myself through and distract them.”

“Now
that
is the stupid decision we were talking about!” Jek yelled.

“You can’t run from mookers,” Lysha added. “They’re everywhere. They’ll close off every route.”

“Jek, just do it before we all die!” Cleve screamed.

“Do it,” Vala said. “Let him distract them.”

Cleve went to the corner to drag one of two chairs over to the center of the small cabin.

“Fine!” Jek’s tone was exasperated, his anger startling Cleve. “But I’m telling Jessend that I tried to stop you.”

“Hurry up.” Cleve was in no mood. “It sounds like some are already on the roof,” he added. “So they might come in after you make an opening, but I need time to pull myself out, so I can’t stay to help. Otherwise, more will—”

Lysha interrupted him. “We know, Cleve!” she said, now just as angered as Jek. “We can take care of the mookers that come in on your way out. Don’t stick around to fight them—Bastial stars, this is stupid.”

“Ready?” Jek asked, his wand pointed at the thin wooden ceiling above Cleve.

Taking a breath, Cleve nodded.

There was a flash of light and then the sound of wood cracking. Something fell—two of them. Mookers.

Lysha kicked one and stabbed the other. That’s all Cleve could see before he jumped up from the chair, using his forearms to propel himself onto the roof in one fluid motion.

He drew his Bastial steel sword and gave a quick look to each direction. There were no other mookers on the roof…at least not yet. Many were jumping on top of each other, scrambling up the sides of the wall for a look.

One of them grabbed hold of the edge and poked its snarling face over. Cleve kicked it and jumped after, soaring behind its body that squeaked and tumbled into the smallest patch of mookers he’d found so far—maybe five of them within clawing range.

In the moment he needed to regain his footing from the landing, he swiped his sword at them to create enough distance. They jumped back, teeth bared, and then Cleve was off.

He ran west, the opposite direction of their horses. He knew Nulya was his best hope for survival, but he didn’t know what the mookers would do to Jek and Lysha’s horse near Nulya if he made it there in time, nor did he know what they would do to the caged pigeon that needed to be released to inform the King of the status of the rescue mission.

Bastial hell, I hope nothing happened to the bird.
If the King didn’t hear soon enough that the rescue was complete, it may as well never have happened, for he’d send the requested five thousand Bastial steel swords to his enemy.

Cleve was weaving between clumps of mookers. Fortunately, many of them seemed surprised to see Cleve running in their direction, almost as if they were afraid he would attack. But the moment he passed by, they would join the hundreds behind him, galloping on all fours like a stampede of tiny horses.

He didn’t have time to see if all he’d passed were still following him. It took too much focus to see where he was going.

Soon, Cleve was out of the encampment, but there were many more trees blocking his path.

Lysha was right—there were mookers everywhere. Many were even jumping from the branches of trees.

One landed on his back and bit into his shoulder just as he twisted to get it off him.

Their teeth were unimaginably sharp, or maybe the strength behind the bite was just extremely powerful. Either way, he’d felt the fangs go deep into his body, and tendrils of hot pain twisted through him.

He kept a closer eye to the sky from that point forward, though it was tough with all the plants and roots seemingly rising to trip him every few steps.

I need more distance to lose them, but too many keep popping out and joining the stampede.

Cleve didn’t know what needed to be done, and he was only beginning to realize he didn’t have the ability to figure it out while running at full speed.

A terrible fear began—that he’d run into another group of mookers, and then he’d be cut off.

And soon, it happened.

Cleve came to a hillside that forced him to turn left or right. Choosing left, he encountered a group of six or seven mookers strolling toward him in a lively fashion. At the sight of him being chased by the others, their mouths opened to show the rest of their teeth, and they galloped toward him.

Knowing he couldn’t slow down, he ran at them in hopes of scaring them as he’d done to others. But this group was far more courageous, picking up speed as they were about to clash.

Cleve slowed so he could slice his sword at the diving mookers, cutting two in half. The other three were already in the air. The force of them slamming into Cleve nearly halted his movement.

He jumped and spun to get them off him. Two of the three were flung before they could sink their teeth in, but one remained around his leg and bit down hard.

He heard himself scream just before stabbing the little bastard with his sword.

It felt like hot coals were in his thigh while he continued to run, a meager attempt to escape the hundreds more behind him. Soon, Cleve felt something else latch onto his leg—another mooker.

It bit him before he could do anything. Then he cut it away with a quick downward swing.

Cleve was slowing, he could feel it. The other mookers were loud behind him, a roaring entourage of “mooks” said with such anger that the fright of being their target sent another surge of energy into his legs.

He had gained back his speed, both legs screaming at him to stop, however.

I can’t go on much longer,
he realized. A quick look over his shoulder showed there were too many mookers to consider fighting.
Is there a dance I could do?

He thought back to asking Lysha about the
we are peaceful
dance. If that wouldn’t work, why would any other? Now his exhaustion was catching up to him.
Push!
Cleve yelled at himself.

He had to find his second wind.
Without it, I’m dead.
He searched deep for strength but couldn’t find it. Again he was slowing, and the mookers grew louder.

Then he thought he heard his name. But it was difficult to tell through the roaring “mooks” behind him.

“Cleve!” This time he knew he’d heard it for sure. He looked over his shoulder. Coming from the distance were three horses.
Jek and Lysha?

They were riding toward him, continuing to shout. “Hold on! We’re almost there!”

Just the glance over his shoulder was enough to allow two more mookers to catch up. He could feel them jumping at him, nicking his heels with their claws. But they didn’t grab on, weren’t close enough yet, he figured.

More were jumping at him, and he felt scratches on the backs of his thighs now. One nearly grabbed on but slipped down in the process and fell off.