The Foolhardies 197 Go For The Throa

Luckily, Edo was in earshot of me, and asked the follow-up, "Yeah, so?"

"I'm really making up for it now, aren't I?" I asked.

My falchion sang as it cut through the air and into the neck of the salamander warrior that had blocked my path.

Two-hundred elite bodyguards from Amon's personal unit — all of them bada.s.s looking salamanders whose shadowblades had been augmented by fire spirits — had come to block our path half a distance away from the basecamp of the general whose head I wanted to claim.

And because of the fiery nature of these salamanders, the air in front of us was so hot you'd feel like you were facing off against a furnace. It made it hard to breathe.

Still, we pressed on, with me, Edo, Thom, and Thor in the lead while our handpicked soldiers gathered around us.

"I can't believe we split our forces even more," Thom laughed. "This is way too reckless even for us."

"Don't complain!" Thor growled.

Thor cut a cross into the chest of a salamander warrior on my immediate right in a great display of swashbuckling swordsmans.h.i.+p.

"We follow the Commander's lead for he promised us victory!" Thor continued.

On the other side of Thor, Thom had just stabbed his katana into another warrior.

"What a loyal mutt, you are, Thor," Thom laughed.

"Enough with the chatter, guys!" I yelled. "Concentrate… there are three-hundred fire eaters between us and Amon… That's two to three each for every one of us!"

Just as I said this, Edo felled his fourth salamander warrior.

"It seems I'm over quota," he noted seriously.

Then, without missing a beat, he swung his glaive forward intending to kill more enemies.

"Warriors, brace!" yelled the salamander leading this retinue.

He was a stout-looking salamander with curly blonde hair that burned at the tips. But the best thing about him was that he was riding on a swifthart.

"Enna, Thom!" I called. "I want that swifthart."

There was little else to be said as the two drow melded into the shadows and sprinted across the desert toward the target I'd designated. The rest of us increased our a.s.sault on the enemy to cover for them and keep the attention on us.

It was a little while later when I heard the sound of the commander's death rattle. Thom had stabbed him from the front while Enna had taken him in the back.

"Push forward!" I yelled.

Without their leader, the well-trained bodyguards were suddenly rudderless. And that was the thing about well-trained soldiers — they tended to falter when the orders stopped coming because they were too well-trained to follow.

The battle got easier after that, but it was still a challenge for us to hook up with Thom and Enna who'd waited for us at the back of the enemy's line while fending off attackers. Luckily, their fellow drow had shadow traveled to their side and a.s.sisted them.

"Your ride, Commander," Thom said dryly as he handed me the reins of the dead commander's swifthart.

I took it, pulled myself up, and then offered a hand to Enna.

"Ride behind me," I said. "You can hack at our enemies while I drive."

After we were both mounted, I turned to my soldiers who'd just broken off from the enemy's lines, and pointed toward the Amon's remaining two-hundred forces.

"Let's go!" I roared.

At the same time, we all heard the explosion of another magnifier blast.

"That's not good," Enna said from behind me. It was the understatement of the year as far as I was concerned.

We charged forward into that empty s.p.a.ce knowing it was a race against time. But, I wasn't overly worried because time and time again, we Foolhardies have beaten the odds, and it was during these type of clutch moments that we were capable of astonis.h.i.+ng feats that dwarf any kind of battle sense or tactic.

In front of us, the divide between me and Amon was getting smaller, and I realized that despite all my planning, Amon still had one tactic to him.

"Hurry," I urged the unknown swifthart I was riding. "Before he gets away."

I was afraid Amon, being a strategic type general, was one of those tacticians who didn't care a bit about honor. If that was the case, all he needed to do was to escape to the east where I and my men wouldn't be able to follow.

But it was a needless worry for Amon hadn't chosen to escape. Instead, he charged at us with his remaining two hundred bodyguards.

This left me momentarily dumbfounded because two hundred soldiers wasn't much.

"They're coming," Enna warned.

"I can see that," I said.

"Not from the front," she said tapping on my shoulder to get my attention. "They're coming from the rear as well.

I looked over my shoulder. "s.h.i.+t…"

After they'd regroup, the three-hundred we'd left behind were at our heels, chasing after us as if they were bats out of h.e.l.l.

"I believe you would call this being between a hammer and an anvil," Enna commented.

"Well, you're extra chatty tonight…" I complained.

The enemy arrived all too soon, long before I had a chance to think up a counter — and we were suddenly in the thick of things again.

At the head of their charge were twenty mounted soldiers, and leading them was a dark-haired, dark-skinned salamander who wielded a burning spear in his hand.

"Enna, get ready!" I said.

Then I charged ahead of my men and aimed the swifthart in the direction of Amon, the s.h.i.+eld of Rah. But before he and I could finally meet in battle, two of his followers got in my way, their shadowblades aimed at my neck.

I blocked the first blow. Enna was kind enough to block the second. But the ferocity of their charge mixed with the force of their slashes threatened to unseat us, and we just barely managed to withstand their attacks. However, they did succeed in stopping my charge. It would cost them their lives though.

Edo and Thom, despite being on foot had kept up with my swifthart. Then, in the next second, they engaged the two mounted salamanders, and while Edo and Thom distracted them, Enna and I went for the killing blow.

It was about that time when Amon and the rest of his troops finally reached us, and it was like an outcropping of rocks getting struck by a mighty river, and we just barely managed to hold the line.

"I applaud you, officer of the Trickster Pavilion!" Amon said in a raspy voice. "Your little tricks managed to reach my throat and force me to engage you myself."

He raised an eyebrow at me just as his spear lunged for my chest.

After I parried his attack, he laughed.

"You must be the young commander who bested my lord at the Undercroft auction many months ago," he said. "He's spoken of you at length, the boy touched with fire… He bade all his officers strike you down if we ever met."

I dodged a second spear attack while Enna attempted to attack him. He blocked her blow and sent the b.u.t.t of his spear at her head. I parried that attack too.

"Funny, I'm here to kill you too," I admitted.

We exchanged another blow and then another with Enna backing me up when she could.

Around us, the battle raged on with my guys getting the worse end of the stick as we were now beset from both our front and rear.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Amon, taunted me about it.

"It seems your gamble failed, commander," he teased. "All that remains is the manner of your death and the total victory of the Dominion's right army this night."

"Are you sure about that?" I fired back. "Look behind you…"

At first, he must have thought I was simply trying to distract him because he just scoffed at me, but after his men began shouting in alarm, Amon finally turned his head to look behind him.

The eastern line of his square formation had been cut in half right down the middle, and pa.s.sing through it were a number of riders from April's forces.

I realized that they must have broken off from the main battle just so they could aim for the general's head.

Funnily enough, the lead rider rode on a familiar-looking yellow swifthart. A creature of shadow and flame floated above her, burning a path for her to cross.  

And if Aura and her band were all that arrived, it would have been enough, but it seemed another group wanted to join the party.

To the south, a number of riders had broken through the enemy and were now charging their way toward us at full speed. Luca rode at their head and his claymore gleamed under the spotlight of Idunn's moon.

"You were right the first time, Amon," I told my enemy. "My tricks have reached your throat."