Noble Sacrifice (3 page)

"We both know I can't run on this leg," he answered. "But I can buy you time."

Tiberion leveled another of those piercing stares. When he spoke, his voice was calm, collected. "We can beat them."

"There's no time. Wolfpoint has to be warned."

The Hellknight nodded, but still didn't rise from his hunkered position. Kal pulled himself up as straight as he could against the stone, throwing back his shoulders as if on parade.

"Sacrifice. That's what you said, right?" He pulled his bow into his lap.

Tiberion said nothing, but Kal thought he saw something flicker in those eyes. Then, still without a word, Tiberion turned and sprinted down the path and out of sight.

Kal was alone. He could hear the enemy drawing closer, their incessant howling revealing their positions up in the rocks. Checking his quiver, he saw he still had four arrows left. He would have to make each one count.

The sound of pounding feet echoed down the narrow pass, and Kal nocked the first arrow, leaning out in time to see a hobgoblin warrior charging toward him. He let fly, taking the warrior high in the chest and knocking him off his feet, then pulled back behind the rock as arrows clattered to the stone where he'd just been.

He waited for two breaths, then leaned out again and loosed a second arrow, pulling back before he could see whether or not he hit. Not that it mattered at this point.

Two left.

The enemy had grown quiet now, no doubt moving forward on his position, ready to make a final rush. He nocked his third arrow.

"Human!" The deep voice rang out from farther up the path, its accent thick and guttural. "I know you are alone. Your coward friend has left you to die. I will do better. Come out and face me, and I will allow you to die a warrior's death, not cowering in the shadows like a worm."

Kal heard the words, and knew it was undoubtedly some kind of trap. Why the hobgoblin didn't just throw goblins at him until he ran out of arrows was beyond Kal, but maybe the leader was running low. And Kal was almost out of arrows. With a sword in hand, he might well have a chance of taking out this band's leader.

More likely, he would die. But at the very least, he might buy Tiberion some more time. Success now was measured in minutes, not arrows.

Kal leaned his bow and quiver against the rock and drew his rapier. Using his free arm to pull himself upright, he stepped carefully out from behind the rock, doing his best to not to limp.

The Eagle Knight half expected to be met by a hail of black arrows, but they never came. Instead, a little way up the path stood a powerful-looking hobgoblin, his face marred by a bestial grin full of pointed, yellow teeth.

"I am Kerschak," said the hobgoblin. "Chief of the Red Tongues. And you will have the honor of dying by my blade."

Too weary to make a proper reply, Kal settled for shooting him a rude gesture some of the enlisted men favored. It wasn't elegant, but it got the point across.

"Kerschak of the Red Tongues has a high opinion of himself."

With a barking laugh, Kerschak ran forward, blade raised high. Kal tried to duck, thrusting forward, but he had no power in his back leg and only managed a weak stab, which the hobgoblin easily batted aside. As Kerschak attacked, Kal was forced backward away from his supporting rock, limping heavily, his rapier barely coming up in time to stop each blow. The hobgoblin chief was relentless, and clearly enjoying this. Again and again his sword hacked down, and where before Kal might have easily countered and impaled his foe, with his wounded leg he could barely parry the ferocious attacks.

Finally, with a mighty sweep of his blade, Kerschak knocked the rapier from Kal's grip, smashing his fist into Kal's face and knocking him to the ground.

Kal lay on his back as the hobgoblin stood over him, victorious. It leered down, and Kal suddenly understood, in a way he'd only imagined before, what the Isgeri farmers must have felt in their last minutes. Yet thinking of them, he suddenly felt himself suffused with a warm glow. He wasn't ready to die--not really--but an Eagle Knight wasn't meant to die in a bed. Kal's only hope as the hobgoblin raised its blade was that his delay had given Tiberion enough time to reach Wolfpoint before the rest of the horde.

"Enough!"

The hobgoblin spun to face the speaker, and Kal looked past him to see Tiberion standing a little way up the path, sword drawn and expression grim.

Kerschak glanced around wide-eyed, shouting in the goblinoid tongue.

Nothing happened.

"You have no archers left, Kerschak of the Red Tongues." Tiberion turned his black sword so the hobgoblin could see the fresh rivulets of blood that ran from it to pool on the stony ground.

Kerschak looked toward the cliffs once more, then seemed to take the Hellknight's word. With a roar, he bolted back up the path toward the Hellknight, powerful legs churning the ground between them.

Tiberion watched him approach, making no move until the last possible second. When his blade hummed through the air, taking off the warchieftain's head, it was in an almost surgical manner, his feet never shifting in the dust. The hobgoblin's body pitched forward, landing in a crumpled heap as his head spun off to roll wetly down the cliff.

Kal pulled himself back upright, leaning against the rock wall as Tiberion approached. The Hellknight wiped the blood from his blade with the corner of his black cloak.

"What happened to sacrifice?" Kal asked, and though he strove for reproach, his tone was grateful.

"I considered you more suitable as a diversion," Tiberion replied. "Come. We've wasted enough time." He gestured down the mountain path.

"In case you've forgotten, there's still this." Kal touched his bad leg carefully. "I'll only slow us down."

With one fluid movement, Tiberion grasped Kal around the waist and slung him over his armored shoulder. Even as his leg screamed at the abuse, Kal was amazed at how easily the big man took his weight.

"Then it is lucky for you, Kal Berne, that I am strong enough for both of us."

And once more they made their way down the mountain, toward Wolfpoint.