Dawn of War (26 page)

Her eyes narrowed as she sniffed at the air. “There’s no blood.” She grasped an antler and pulled the dear’s head up to peer beneath it. The subtle crackle of broken bones caused her to drop it, her purple eyes wide. “You ran this down with only your hands?”

Waeri came up behind Kirah, the rest of the cadre suddenly more interested in the conversation than the deer, their voices falling into a quiet hush.

Arrin nodded. “Blood draws predators.”

Kirah stepped closer, her pink nose just inches from Arrin’s. “You are not like any Lathahn I have ever seen. You run faster than the Pathra, and it would seem you are at least as strong as the Ruhr, judging by how cleanly the creature’s neck was broken.” She met Arrin’s eyes, questions whirling there by the dozens. She voiced only one. “What are you?”

 
“I’m but a pale shade of the terror that rides toward Lathah under the guise of the Grol.” He drew a deep breath and stepped away from Kirah. His movement slow, he drew his short blade and passed it to one of the Pathra, hilt first. “Cut us some flanks so we may eat and be on our way, before too long.”

The warrior took the blade and went about his business, but his ears flickered alongside his furry head, his focus clearly still on Arrin. Kirah and Waeri waited until he began again.

Arrin lifted the matted lengths of his hair to clear their view of the collar. Their gazes were drawn to it as he willed it to life, the runes glowing green.

“It is a gift from times past, a relic imbued with magic by the ancient hands of the Sha’ree.” He tugged at the silvery collar as all of the Pathran eyes watched. “Bound to my flesh, and much deeper still in ways I do not truly understand, it fills me with the strength and endurance of the great oaks, and makes me quick like the lightning that is cast likes spears from the clouds. It succors me when I cannot feed and dulls even the most dire of wounds, letting me fight on when all else have fallen around me.” He loosed a quiet sigh. “Despite all that, it is but one relic and I am but one man. The Grol march with hundreds of such relics.”

“And they come for Lathah?” Waeri asked.

“Today they advance upon my homeland with savage intent. Perhaps tomorrow it will be yours, and the day after...all of Ahreele.” He strode to the fire and warmed his hands before it, a sudden chill settling upon him at his words. “This is why I came to your father. I thought at first only of the safety of my
fam
—my people,” he corrected, “but there is no safe haven from the power I saw devastate Fhenahr. None of our people are safe as long as the Grol remain alive.”

“Were the warriors of Pathrale and Lathah to combine forces, we would far outnumber the beasts. Surely they cannot stand against our nations united,” Waeri said, his voice strong with certainty.

Arrin loosed a sickly laugh. “If only it were that easy. Our armies would be halved by the time we even closed to
arrow
range, our soldiers naught but ash on the wind and bitter memories in our soon-to-be-stilled hearts. We might well claim a few Grol lives in our attempt, but it would be upon us the crows fed. And they would feed well.”

“What if we harried them along their course, picking them apart in raids focused upon the power-wielders?” Kirah asked.

“That may well be the trick of it, but it isn’t entirely an issue of numbers. The relics can simply be passed onto the next Grol soldier, and though we might claim a number of their lives, the power yet remains.” He shook his head as he turned to face the siblings. “Our action must be so decisive it lays waste to the Grol in a single blow, or we run, striking out at them until such time that we might pick them apart, down to the last beast. Neither tactic is likely to succeed, made unlikelier still by Prince Olenn’s unwillingness to ride out to meet the beasts, let alone acknowledge they are a threat.”

“Then it would seem we are doomed?” Waeri shook his head, his ears flat.

 
“I can’t believe that,” Kirah said. “The answer has simply yet to avail itself to us.”

“I would hope true, sister, but if what the
Lat
—”

Arrin raised a hand to silence the brother. The Pathra went quiet and stared as Arrin focused his senses. A subtle scent wafted to his nose.

“To arms!”

Arrin grasped the Pathran siblings and pulled them bodily alongside their brethren as though they were but children. He spun past the deer carcass and reclaimed his sword from the wide-eyed warrior that had been cutting steaks from its rump. Blade in hand, he circled around to the front of the group just as five Grol strolled from the trees. He knew instantly they were possessed of power. Even if he hadn’t realized the stealth of their approach, or the confidence of their swagger, he would have known. His collar resonated at his throat as it sensed the kindred spirits carried by the Grol.

“Stand your ground or die, beasts. You’ll not find us easy prey.” Arrin kept his uncertainty from his voice as he heard the clatter of weapons being readied behind him. It would do the Pathra no good to believe he feared for all of their lives.

One of the Grol bared its jagged teeth and growled a command, though Arrin could make no sense of it. The warriors at its side began to slowly spread out, moving away from each other by degrees while they closed on Arrin with short steps.

      
Arrin could see the bronze that ringed their wrists, the glimmers of green that flickered at the symbols set upon their bracers. He knew not the measure of power the beasts wielded, but he did know the savage nature of the Grol well enough to guess.

Selfish and vain, born of a society where the biggest and strongest ruled by force, the beasts’ leader would share as little of his power as possible. He would not want to arm prospective challengers to his rule.

Arrin gathered a little confidence from that thought, though the numbers still worried him, but he showed none of it. “Your pack must despise you to have sent you against me.” He brushed the hair from his neck to expose his collar. He willed it to shine. “Your bracers are but morsels to the meal I wear about my neck.” He saw them hesitate, their advance slowing, and twisted the blade of his words harder. “For fifteen years I’ve worn my relic and battled from the Funeral Sands to the Stone Hills, my sword stained in the graveled blood of the Hull and all manner of the twisted beasts that lurk in the Dead Lands. Do you think the pittance of power your master lent you an equal to mine?”

Confusion and uncertainty in equal measure painted the faces of the Grol, save for one; a mottled gray and black with patches of white decorating its stubby snout.

“You fight well with your tongue, wall-dweller,” the brave Grol said in the Lathahn tongue, the words thick and coated with phlegm, “but I
scent
a braggart, nothing more. The Hull cannot be brought down, neither with steel nor magic. You speak false for the sake of the cats that cower behind you.”

Arrin shrugged and smiled, knowing the truth of his boast. “Then let us see.”

He leapt toward the Grol who’d called him out, then changed direction at the last moment to barrel toward the one beside him. Speeded by the bracers, both reacted quickly, the other Grol moving off in an effort to surround him.

Arrin feinted with a thrust to the Grol’s face, the beast pulling away without problem. He launched two more attacks, his blade snapping serpent-like as the beast dodged both. He smiled as the Grol moved to return to its defensive posture, Arrin’s kick catching its knee the moment it touched the ground.

Giving way like a wintered bough, the knee snapped with a sharp crack. The Grol’s howls had only just begun to well up in its mouth when Arrin drew his blade across its throat, cutting so deep his blade grated against the bone of its spine.

Warm blood struck his shoulder and splattered wet as he shifted around the dead Grol. He grasped a handful of fur and heaved the beast at its companions that closed behind him. They stumbled to a halt and shoved the Grol aside, taking an instant to look for him. Arrin smiled at their reaction, his confidence growing.

“Spears,” he called out to the Pathra, who responded without hesitation.

Javelins hissed through the air toward the stalled Grol. Arrin knew they would do the beasts no harm, the bracers enhancing their perception along with their physical reactions, but he hadn’t expected the Pathra to bring the Grol down. He hoped only for a distraction.

The Grol nearest Arrin, batted the spears aside with a growled laugh, baring its teeth at the Pathra. Its grin fell from its wolfish face as Arrin came at it low beneath the second volley. It lashed out at him only to be struck by one of the spears, the tip sinking into the meat of its shoulder. It flinched, its claws swiping past Arrin as he closed.

Arrin thrust his sword upward as he drew in close. The blade slid into the Grol’s torso, just beneath the ribcage, the tip coming to a stop as it broke through the beast’s jaw and cut its tongue in twain. It opened its mouth to cry out and Arrin could see the shimmering steel of his sword between its jagged teeth before he yanked it free, the Grol’s mouth exploding in a geyser of blood.

At his back he heard another Grol and spun to meet it. He was too slow. Strips of fire seared to life at his lower back, claws tearing clean through the leather of his cuirass. He was knocked forward, crashing into the Grol he’d just killed. Entangled in a mass of twitching limbs slick with fluids, Arrin went down in a twisted heap.

The mottled Grol hovered over him as its companions raced to his side. “Kill the cats,” it shouted to one of its men, the red glare of its eyes never leaving Arrin. “This one is ours.”

The brave Grol sunk its claws in Arrin’s leg as he squirmed to be loose of the corpse that slowed him. Arrin bit back a scream as he felt the sharpened tips sink into his flesh and settle against the bone of his shin.

The Grol yanked hard and spun him over, the beast’s fingers digging into his other leg to hold him still with fierce strength. Both he and the corpse were flipped sideways to slam into the ground with a wet thud. Arrin groaned and went to lash out, but his sword arm was pinned immediately by the second Grol, the claws of both its hands sunk deep into the meat of his forearm, up to the first knuckle. Arrin felt the muscles of his arm spasm and the joint of his elbow strain, but he held onto his sword with sheer desperation. He felt the power of the bracers as they overwhelmed his own considerable strength and his face flushed with the heat of despair.

Arrin caught a quick glimpse of the Pathra through blurry eyes as he was rolled over once more, back onto his stomach, the empowered Grol making quick work of the feline warriors. He saw two taken down in the space of a heartbeat. They wouldn’t last long, he knew. He didn’t suspect he would either.

He felt the sting of claws once more, their sharpness ripping through the back of his leg, and clenched his teeth to keep from letting the Grol hear his screams. They might take his life, but he wouldn’t give them the pleasure of his pain.

His sword arm immobilized, Arrin’s free hand grasped for something he could use as a weapon. His fingers felt only the dead flesh of the Grol beneath him, grasping reflexively around the beast’s wrist as more flesh was torn from his leg.

His pain-addled gaze drifted to the Pathra as he struggled and he saw another die, a handful of them already crumpled at the feet of the Grol warrior. Another scrape of claws across his shoulder blades drew his focus back to his own troubles, the two Grol above him tearing him apart in slow slashes, his cuirass shredded and useless.

He struggled against their hold, but was held fast, unable to break loose, his left arm pinned beneath him, clasped tight to the corpse in impotence. He heard Kirah cry out in fury, her voice cut short mid-shout. He heard the dull slap of a body hitting the ground. Arrin’s stomach lurched at the sound.

He’d led Warlord Quaii’s children to their deaths. The thought soured in his gut as yet another trailing of claws set his leg on fire. He bit back his pain and loosed a furious howl as he willed his collar to draw power beyond any he’d ever dared. He felt it respond, bolts of lightning storming through his veins.

His mind cleared in an instant, his thoughts crystalline. He glanced over to see another Pathra die, nearly a dozen since he’d been pinned, and yet he still lived. He suddenly understood why.