The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (14 page)

A hand grasped Balear’s shoulder, and he
jumped in panic even as Rondel whispered, “Stop.” Balear turned and
saw Rondel’s stressed, even worried face. Considering her
impressive display yesterday, that look unsettled him more than
anything he’d seen in years.

The old Left methodically surveyed the room,
those crazy sparks in her eyes again. At first Balear thought
Rondel had satisfied herself, because she took a few steps toward
the room’s far end. The young sergeant stared at her back,
wondering what passed through her head.

Without warning Rondel spun around and drew
her dagger. “Get ready,” she spat, her terse voice low and acidic.
“There are ten of them.”

Iren and Dirio finally came into the room,
the foreman huffing and puffing after all the effort. “Ten of
what?” he breathed, his hands on his knees.

Rondel didn’t get a chance to answer. As
soon as Dirio spoke, a hideous cackling filled the room, and a mass
of grotesque shapes cascaded from the ceiling. The dim cavern
torches cast odd shadows off their five-foot frames, reverse
jointed legs, and lanky arms that nearly reached the ground. Their
angular faces sported glowing yellow eyes and a pair of three-inch
horns sticking out above them. Worst of all, though, the beasts had
bright red hair, which reflected the torches perfectly and made
their ghastly heads appear aflame. Each monster carried a pair of
two-foot long swords, one in each hand, the blades adorned with
barbs and a tip that curved backward. Balear trembled. Those swords
weren’t designed to slice cleanly, but rather to torture and
inflict maximum pain on their victims as they were slowly cut to
ribbons. Only one race would craft such swords and take so much
delight in using them.

Yokai.

Iren grimaced, all he had time for as the
Yokai attacked without mercy. They moved completely unlike the
Quodivar he had battled on the hill, using their muscular
reverse-jointed legs and light bodies to bound over the floor and
walls. With each leap, they flipped in midair and whipped their
swords in tight arcs. Iren dismayed. He couldn’t get a strike
through those spinning blades. Even if he did, each Yokai wore a
crude steel breastplate, increasing its protection that much
more.

Bone-jarring impacts replaced Iren’s doubts
as he clashed with his first enemy. The Yokai’s strength was
unreal, far beyond what the creature’s small frame suggested it
should be. When a second beast joined in, Iren felt himself getting
pushed steadily back against the cavern wall. Between the two Yokai
and four swords he faced, he barely blocked deathblow after
deathblow.

He prayed for the others to help him,
knowing they could not. Dirio had vanished behind a screen of Yokai
and probably already died. Meanwhile, Balear fought three opponents
at once. Despite the sergeant’s experience, the Yokai’s inhuman
capabilities easily overwhelmed him. Like Iren, he had his back to
the cavern wall as his enemies pressed him. That wall offered
little protection, however, because the Yokai had the uncanny
ability to jump and stick themselves to it, finding the
imperfections in the cavern and climbing around it like spiders.
Balear soon faced two opponents on the ground and one from
above.

As for Rondel, Iren couldn’t see her at all,
even though the old hag should have been just past Balear. He
desperately hoped the Yokai hadn’t killed her in their initial
ambush. Of any of them, she stood the best chance against these
monsters.

Iren kept up his furious battle, but each
time the Yokai swung their swords, their attacks got a little
closer. A barely-dodged slash aimed at his head cut off several of
his hairs. Two more close calls left him with shallow wounds on
both legs. His breathing became labored, but he ignored the pain,
trusting in the Muryozaki to heal his injuries.

With each passing second, Iren hated the
Yokai more. He despised their swords and the way they swung them
constantly like fans. The motion acted as both offense and defense.
While one blade effectively blocked all of his attacks, he still
had to contend with three that could strike him. He tried
everything he could think of to get inside their guard, but the
swords simply moved too fast.

Then the answer hit him. With a great effort
he jumped several feet to one side, outside the range of his two
enemies’ short blades. The move bought him only a second as the
Yokai leapt to face him, but it made the difference. Though too far
away to land a lethal blow, his sword, longer and narrower than
theirs, thrust forward and landed on a Yokai’s wrist, severing the
hand. The beast howled and stepped backward, clutching its stump
with its other hand. Iren beheaded it without a second thought.

He cried out, “Everyone, aim for their
hands!” Frantically, he glanced around, hoping the others had heard
his message. He still couldn’t locate Dirio or Rondel, but Balear
at least must have caught Iren’s words. A few seconds later, the
struggling sergeant managed to stab one of his opponents in the
hand and ultimately slay the creature.

The Yokai’s lack of camaraderie astounded
Iren. When one became injured, the others made no effort whatsoever
to protect it. Through the haze of combat, he wondered if in Yokai
culture, someone who couldn’t fight was considered dead.

Although Balear had managed to kill one of
his foes, the taxing battle had left him spent. The sergeant’s
sword drooped. With two Yokai still on him, Balear would die in
less than a minute. Already he had numerous cuts, and one or two
looked serious.

Iren wanted to help, but he couldn’t disarm
his second opponent. Wizened to its foe’s new strategy, the monster
kept dancing beyond his reach. Each time Iren struck, it jumped
away. It moved almost lazily, as though it had all the time on
Raa.

Then Iren realized the creature’s cunning.
The Yokai had seen what Iren had seen, and it too knew Balear would
die soon. With Dirio and Rondel nowhere in sight, once Balear fell,
Iren would stand alone. All the remaining Yokai could descend on
him simultaneously. Holy sword or not, he would never survive.

Iren made a snap decision. Sprinting away
from his opponent, he thrust his sword at one of the Yokai fighting
Balear. Iren didn’t even need to disarm this one. His unexpected
attack sliced through the creature’s neck, and it fell writhing to
the floor. Iren stood in front of Balear, protecting him from
further onslaught.

“
What are you doing?”
Balear cried. “Get out of my way!” The shout must have sapped the
man’s last reserves, because the next moment he dropped to his
knees, heaving.

Sweat poured off Iren’s body, despite the
cave’s cool temperature. Through his exhaustion, however, he
noticed the Yokai tiring as well. Their whirling defenses, while
initially effective, had a drawback over time. The constant motion
drained their strength, and after the long fight, their swords
moved far slower than they had previously. The Yokai must have
hoped for a quick victory following their ambush, so the surprising
strength of the defenders caught them unprepared.

The knowledge that these beasts also had a
limit gave Iren courage and brought strength to his tired limbs. He
kept pace with them better, slaying a third Yokai without much
difficulty. Even so, every strike, every block, every tiny motion
of his body now caused him pain. When his final opponent used his
own strategy against him and aimed for his left hand, Iren barely
managed to deflect the blow. Even so, one of the barbs on his
enemy’s sword cut a shallow but excruciating gash on his wrist, and
he dropped the Muryozaki in surprise. His eyes went wide as he
looked into the glowing face of the triumphant Yokai. The beast
wasted no time in swinging its second blade to disembowel him.

A fervent roar issued from the far side of
the room. Something whirled through the air and crashed into the
Yokai’s head, shattering its skull. Iren simply stared,
dumbfounded. Then he saw what had struck the Yokai, and his
amazement only deepened.

A miner’s pick had embedded itself in the
creature’s temple. Iren traced the tool’s path back and saw Dirio
standing amid a pile of corpses, holding a hammer. He must have
fought with the hammer in one hand and the pick in the other.
Rondel stood beside him with her dagger dripping green ooze. The
same substance covered the room, and Iren realized it was Yokai
blood.

With the Yokai slain, Iren retrieved his
sword, feeling the pain in his wrist fade as Divinion’s healing
power restored him. As he did so, Dirio lost consciousness, and for
the first time, Iren noticed that the foreman bled profusely.
Rondel wrapped the man’s arm around her shoulders and carried him
to where Iren and Balear rested, leaning him against a stalagmite.
Iren couldn’t pull his gaze from the foreman. Dirio’s final act had
saved Iren’s life. Desperate, Iren placed the Muryozaki in the
man’s palm, holding sword and hand together the way he had the day
before in the village square.

“
Hey, stop!” Rondel
shouted. “You’re in no condition to do that!”

Iren didn’t listen. He didn’t care. He saw
no one else, nothing else, except for Dirio. Healing light filled
the room, and seconds later, the foreman coughed and opened his
eyes. Iren’s vision grayed, but at least he remained conscious this
time. He stood and took a step back, silently thanking Divinion for
his help.

As he did, Dirio’s face filled with panic.
He cried out, “What
the . . . you . . . you’re
a Left!”

Iren scowled, noting the sword in his left
hand. Before he could answer, though, Rondel said, “He’s the person
who saved your life yesterday, remember? That’s all.”

For a moment Dirio chewed his lip
thoughtfully, eyeing Iren as though he didn’t know what to make of
him. Then the middle-aged miner surprised everyone by smiling,
extending his hand, and saying, “Looks like I owe you my life
again.”

Iren returned the grin and took Dirio’s
hand, the first time in his life he had done so with anyone.
Glancing at the miner’s pick in the Yokai at his feet, he answered,
“Let’s call us even.”

The young Maantec next offered to heal
Balear’s injuries, but Rondel blocked him. “Don’t use any more
magic,” she said. “You’ll pass out again, or worse. We can’t afford
that here, so just keep still. Balear’s wounds won’t kill him.”

The team rested several minutes. Balear,
Iren, and Dirio all sat on the cold earth of the cavern floor.
Rondel paced the room, examining the damage. Alone of all of them,
she looked completely hale, not even out of breath despite guarding
Dirio against five Yokai at once. Iren felt terrible for doubting
her. He’d questioned her character more than once since leaving
Haldessa, but surely he’d misjudged her. Had she not fought
alongside them just now, they all would have died.

“
Something here doesn’t add
up,” she growled, interrupting Iren’s thoughts. “Amroth came this
way, but we’ve seen no sign of him. These Yokai ambushed us. Why
didn’t they attack him?”

Balear gulped, white-faced as he offered,
“Maybe they did.”

“
Then where’s his corpse?”
Rondel retorted. “If he died, we should see his body.” She
continued to pace a moment longer, but then she stopped and knelt,
touching the ground and trembling. “Impossible.”

Terror rose in Iren at the thought of
something so awful it could make Rondel shake. The crone stood and
leaned against the cavern’s far wall, a hand on her head. With fear
in her voice, she described her finding. Near the opposite end of
the room from where they had entered, heavy, three-toed footprints
dug deep into the soft gravel floor. The prints measured over
twenty inches across.

“
They look like Yokai
footprints,” she concluded, “but no Yokai has feet this size. No,
this is an Oni.”

Balear and Dirio both blanched, but Iren
just stared blankly.

“
Almost all Yokai look like
the ones we just fought,” Balear explained, “but once in a great
while, a mutant Yokai is born that grows to extraordinary size.
Those are the Oni. In shape they appear just like Yokai, but their
immense bulk makes them terrifying foes. They can rip up trees with
their bare hands, and their hides can deflect the sharpest blade.
Even worse, they retain all the agility of their smaller kin. At
least, so the legends say.”

“
In this case, the legends
don’t exaggerate,” Rondel interjected. “I’ve had the misfortune to
fight one or two Oni in my life. I don’t consider it a pleasant
experience.” She paused, thinking. “Maybe the Yokai weren’t lying
in wait when Amroth came through here. Perhaps they took up their
positions afterward. Yes, look here; the Oni’s footprints turn
around and lead deeper into the cavern. A bloodstained streak
follows them: a red streak.”

Balear’s expression flared, and Iren and
Dirio averted their faces. Yokai, and Iren guessed Oni as well, had
green blood. This blood came from a human.

Rondel lowered her head. “Amroth most likely
came charging in here after that Quodivar, and he met up instead
with an Oni. Judging from the amount of blood, he didn’t survive.
The Quodivar man then informed the Oni that more enemies remained,
so the Oni dragged Amroth’s corpse away and ordered the Yokai we
killed to set up an ambush.”

Balear buried his head in his hands. He
choked, “Of course. If they’d left Captain Angustion here, we would
know to expect an attack. They had to remove him, dead or alive, in
order to fool us into thinking the room was empty.”

Iren swooned. Amroth was dead? He couldn’t
believe it. He wouldn’t believe it. Lodia had no better soldier
than Amroth. The captain had just become heir to the throne, and he
would have made a far better king than Azuluu. This entire mission
had been his idea. It wasn’t fair for him to die now, not when they
had come so close to victory.