NexLord: Dark Prophecies (48 page)

To their left the second Tog
leaped
for Dono.  Lor thought that
Mara would have been proud of her student because Dono did not
flinch from the
seven-foot
tall
hurling beast, but used his moment of time to consider his move and
act.  He switched the sword to his left hand and at the
last moment, Dono
leaped
to his
right in a crouch, trailing the sword out to the
side.  The Tog had to try and cut across its entire body,
with the sword held in its right hand.  Its momentum
carried it passed Dono before it could bring its weapon to
bear.  Dono's blade cut into its upper left
thigh. 

The Tog spun and Dono came to his feet and
they faced each other again.

Lor had a
quarterstaff
and put it to good use by blind-siding the
beast in the left side of its head, with a wicked roundhouse
swing.

The Tog staggered from the blow and then
shook its head while spitting out broken black teeth.

Dono lunged forward at the dazed creature in
a perfect extension of his blade and body, piercing the Togs low
placed heart dead center, right where Tocor had taught him it was
located.  Dead, without knowing it, the beast stepped
forward, even though this caused the sword to slide further into
its body. As soon as he was close enough, the dying Tog swung its
sword at Dono's head.

With a yelp of surprise, Dono released his
embedded blade and ducked under the creature’s swing, which caused
the boy to fall to the ground to avoid the blade's path.

The creature staggered forward and then
toppled toward Dono's sprawled body.

Katek lay stunned in the nearby bush, and the
other Tog went to finish him off, but Aerin extended his
quarterstaff and tripped the beast.

The creature fell to its knees, and with a
snarl,
it started to regain its
feet.  It twisted its misshapen head around to see what
had kept it from its prey.

Aerin didn't wait for it to recover; he
reversed his staff in a blur and thrust the end toward the beast's
head.

The Tog's sword met his
staff
and cut halfway into the hard wood, which
halted its motion.  The Tog's blade was trapped, but it
was too strong for Aerin and wrenched the staff from the boy’s
hands with a jerk of its massive arm.

Aerin pulled a dagger from his waist and
wondered how, for the second time in his short life, he had come to
a point where he faced a Togroth with only a dagger in hand.

Suddenly Lor was
there
and swung her staff at the rising
beast.  It tried to bring its sword to bear, but Aerin's
quarterstaff impeded the move, and Lor's staff struck the side of
its head.

The creature bellowed and fell back to its
knees in a daze.

Aerin
leaped
onto its back and used his dagger to cut the creature's throat.

Gagging, the Togroth reached over its
shoulder, with its massive left hand, and threw Aerin
a good
ten yards.  Aerin went into a
ball and rolled across the gravelly terrain.

Lor danced back from the thrashing
beast
and watched in disgust as
its slit throat spewed yellow
blood
until it finally quit kicking and
died.  Once she was sure it was out of the fight, Lor
looked to Aerin and found him already regaining his feet.

"Dono's over there," Lor called to him, "I'll
see how Katek is faring."

Lor went to the bush, and after checking to
see if there was any obvious injury to their friend, she slapped
the unconscious boy across the face lightly to try to bring him
around.

Katek twitched and muttered something
unintelligible, so Lor slapped him again, harder.

"Ow!” he exclaimed, groggily.

Lor slapped him a third time.

Katek’s eyes opened, and a look of anger came
over his face.  "Stop slapping me!"

Lor grinned at him, "Didn't I say that you
would pay?  Besides, I was just helping to bring you
around, since you decided to nap during the battle with the
Togs."

"Togs!" Katek said suddenly
remembering.  He began struggling mightily to get up and
out of the bush, in which his body was entangled. 

Lor stepped back and looked to see how Aerin
was doing with Dono.

Her grinning cohort, from her youth, was
covered with the Togroth's yellow blood, but proud of
himself.  Aerin was headed for Katek, but his worried
expression relaxed as he saw Katek regain his feet.

"Victory!" Dono called.

Aerin poked him from
behind.  "Quiet, we don't want to call down any more Togs
on us, or this might swiftly become defeat."

Dono's grin slipped and he looked around the
bushes
as if more Togs would
appear at any moment.

"Everybody all right?" Aerin asked.

Lor and Dono both nodded.  Katek
touched his sore jaw.  "I'm fine, just my pride is
hurt."

Dono grinned again.  "Nice bruise
forming on your face, buddy."

Katek scowled at Lor.  "I think
that's more from Lor's gentle
waking
techniques, than the Tog's blow, but I'm not
sure," he growled.

Lor did her best to look innocent.

Dono tried, ineffectually, to rub off some of
the sticky yellow blood that stained the front of his
clothes.  "What were these two Togroths doing up
here?"

Aerin considered for a
moment.  "
Lookouts
, and
from the direction they were traveling, I think they were coming
from the outer edge."

"They must be the ones I saw from the road!"
Lor guessed.  "Their armor, or one of their weapons,
caught the sun for a moment."

"It could be, but there might be more of
these things up here, so we need to be more careful," Aerin
decided.

They picked up their weapons, and after a
quick consultation, they decided to continue on their old plan,
though they started to take more care to avoid another surprise
confrontation.

As they approached the edge of the mesa the
four young rescuers got down on their bellies and crawled until the
Togroth camp came into view. 

The Togs had cleared a large area of brush
and trees to make camp.  From the amount of preparation,
and time invested, to build the wooden pen, the Togs had obviously
intended to stay a few days in this hidden position.  The
mesa provided cover and a good position to spy on the road, or
signal the troops below that someone was on the road.  It
would then be easy for the army to reach the road in time to engage
their quarry.

Katek was the first to speak, as the four of
them took in the scene below.  "They're mounting up to
ride out!"

"Gedin help us, those two we killed must have
already signaled them about Gandarel's party on the road," Dono
cursed.

"We've got to warn them!" Aerin
decided
as he started pulling back from the
edge.

"Sure," Lor said sarcastically, "we'll yell
real loud, and they'll hear us four leagues away."  But
she pulled back from the edge and followed her friend.

"We could start a fire," Dono suggested.

"I suppose you brought the tinderbox from the
wagon," Lor said dryly.

Dono shook his head, "No, sorry."

Once out of sight from the Togroth army,
Aerin started to run across the breadth of the mesa toward the road
edge, and his friends followed.

When they reached the edge they could see the
Blue column of soldiers strung out along the road.  They
were stopped at the moment.  Aerin had hoped that there
would be enough of them to withstand the Togroth attack if they
were warned, but looking down from above, he got a good look at
their total strength, about three hundred men.  Having
just fought two of the beasts, Aerin had a healthy respect for the
prowess and
sheer
tenacity of the
creatures.  It took a lot to put one down.

"OK, oh brilliant leader, now
what?  Shall we moon them?" Lor asked.

"Yes, drop your pants," Katek said with a
grin, the thrill of battle still lit the young gladiator's
eyes.

Lor scowled at him, "Keep that up and you'll
be enjoying the view from a falling position over this cliff."

Aerin ignored his friend's banter and
explained his plan, "Get the shiniest thing you have, like the side
of your sword or dagger.  We'll all try to reflect the
sun onto the soldiers.  If they see
a constant
reflection, they will at least know
someone is trying to signal them about something.  It's
the best we can do. By the time we climb
down
and run to their position, the Togs would overtake
us."

It was the best plan they had, so they all
started signaling.

After a
time,
they saw two pairs of riders break off and head
toward either end of the mesa.

"There, they saw us a
signal
, they're sending out scouts," Katek noted.

Lor started pacing. Watching this unfold from
the top of the mesa, and being unable to do anything, had them all
frustrated, but Lor was the most susceptible.  It made
her irritable.

"They're idiots; Mara will already have
reached them by now and told them what is out here.  When
they saw us signal they should put two-and-two together and figure
out to shake a tail and run!"

"What can we do, they're going to be
slaughtered!" Dono whispered.

"Nothing, we've done what we can, so now it
is up to Mara to talk some sense into them," Aerin
decided.  "What we can do is what we came up here for in
the first place.  Now that the Togs have left their camp
we might be able to slip in and free their prisoners."

"Now you're talking," Katek
agreed, "action!  Let's get back to the other side
of the mesa."

"How many times are we going to run across
this thing?" Dono asked, but he was already running after the
others before he finished his sentence.

When they again crawled to their observation
position, they found the last of the Togs riding
out.  The Tog forces had split, with half of the beasts
going around the southern end and the other half going to the
north. They would trap the Bluecoats between their two
fists.

"Perhaps, if Gandarel’s soldiers attack one
of the groups, they can break through and get outside the trap,"
Dono noted to the others.

"Maybe, but they would take terrible losses,"
Katek answered.

"It’s better than being wiped
out.  I think Mara will have them head for Strakhelm,
that way if they do break through they can run for the walls."

"It's a fair distance, especially if they
have wounded.  I doubt the Togs will slow down for their
wounded," Katek said, in a fatal sounding voice.

"Are you always this cheerful?" Lor
asked.

"It's better than being sarcastic," he
noted.

"And here I forgot how wise you were," Lor
said, dripping more sarcasm.

Aerin watched the last group of Togs ride
out; he noted that there were still a few guards left to watch
their camp.  As he had remembered, there was a square
corral made of round branches interwoven to a height of six
feet.  The top of the makeshift corral had sharpened
sticks pointing up so that it was difficult to climb
out.  Inside they could make out some huddled forms of
people grouped together on the ground. 

"See," Lor said, as if she had come up with
it, "there are people in there."

"Well, it doesn't look like Gedin is going to
save them, so it will have to be us," Aerin decided.

"There are still at least twelve Togs around
that camp," Lor pointed out.  "And two of them were
almost more than we could handle.  Although, Katek could
use some additional bruises on the other side of his face, to kind
of even him out," Lor noted critically.

"Funny," Katek said dryly.

"Lor's right," Aerin said.

"Katek needs more bruises?" Dono asked,
puzzled.

Aerin poked his friend in the ribs with his
forefinger, "No, we can't take on twelve Togs; I would hesitate to
take on three."

"Mighty warriors that we are," Katek said in
disgust.

Dono looked at their friend, "Hey, we didn't
do too badly, those Togroth things are dead and we're only slightly
worse for the wear."

"Tell that to those poor people in the
corral, waiting to be celebration dinner," Katek said, pointing at
the Tog camp.

Aerin was worried about Gandarel and the
imminent attack, but he brought his wandering thoughts back to the
problem at hand.

"We're going to need a diversion, to take the
Togs out of sight of the corral, while some of us sneak in to free
the prisoners."

"
Dread
take
me, who do you think is going to volunteer to get thirteen Togs hot
on their tail?" Lor demanded.

"I was thinking of you," Aerin said with a
grin.

"Me!" Lor exclaimed, and her eyes shot
daggers at Aerin.

Aerin nodded.  "You are the
sneakiest, slipperiest and most elusive of all of us."

"And the compliments just keep coming," Lor
growled.  "Now that you have called me a sneaky, slimy,
coward I guess that is supposed to make me want to do
this... besides, Dono is sneakier."

"He could have called you a thief," Katek
noted, "but he didn't."

"Thief?" Lor repeated in exasperation.

"If the shoe fits," Katek noted with a
smile.  "Look, we have to decide something soon, so are
you up to it, or am I going to have to do it for you?" Katek
asked.

"Oh sure, you couldn't get away from an
amorous grandmother wearing a blindfold.  Gedin, do I
have to do everything?  Fine, I'll do it, but you will
all owe me for this!  If I die, I'm going to come back
and haunt Katek for the rest of his life!"

"It couldn't be worse than you alive," Katek
said with an even bigger grin.