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focused on the dark elf, who writhed like an enraged serpent as he sought to escape. They rolled again, Dennis on top, faces only inches apart. The moredhel head-butted Dennis in the face. The blow stunned Dennis, blurring his vision.
    They rolled down the slope and crashed into the icy creek. Dennis lost his grip and felt the moredhel break free of his grasp and draw his dagger. The moredhel’s arm snapped up. And then he moved with a spasmodic jerk. An arrow had slammed into the dark elf ’s chest, going clean through his body. A mist of blood exploded from the elf ’s back.
    With a gurgling cry the moredhel staggered to his feet and started to run, blood pulsing out. Dennis gasped for breath and caught a glimpse of Tinuva standing up on the trail, already drawing a second arrow, tracking the moredhel, but then held his shot as the Dark Brother staggered into the clearing.
    Tinuva relaxed his grip on his bow and looked down at Dennis.
    ‘Move now!’ Tinuva hissed.
    Dennis, his heart pounding, shoulder aching, came to his feet and started up the slope to Tinuva’s side.
    ‘Trap, we’re in a trap!’ Tinuva announced.
    As he gained the trail he caught a glimpse of the dying moredhel collapsing and confronting him, the column of Tsurani. There had been only one Tsurani, and now there was near on a hundred and he realized that his struggle with the moredhel must have dragged out for several dangerously long minutes.
    Too much was happening too quickly and he leaned over, gasping for breath. The shock of his fight and near death was having its impact and he fought down an urge to vomit. Tinuva grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back off the trail.
    ‘The moredhel net is wide,’ Tinuva said quickly. ‘They are waiting on the trail, two hundred yards from here. Ambush prepared. ‘They didn’t know we were near and the one you killed was one of their flanking scouts. They will find us in a few minutes, crossing the trail we made in the snow. Gregory sent me back to tell you.’
    At that same instant he saw that the Tsurani were turning, shying away from the trail and heading straight into the woods in the 44

    direction where his own men were concealed. The move triggered a response: a shower of arrows snapped out from the forest.
    Damn! Now we are revealed .
    He sprinted up the slope, Tinuva bounding forward by his side.
    Ground that had taken minutes to cover before he crossed in seconds.
    He caught a glimpse of Alwin Barry and a dozen of his men poised around the boulders firing down on the Tsurani. Several of the Tsurani had their alien short-bows out and crouching behind the stumps of trees in the clearing, were shooting back.
    Horns now echoed all around them. From the east side of the clearing he saw dark-cloaked forms, a hundred or more charging, while others poured out of the fort. More were coming up from the south. It was chaos. He needed to think clearly, but the smashing blow to his head from the dark moredhel still had him stunned.
    Looking down at the Tsurani he saw one of them barely a hundred feet away charging, sword held high. There was something vaguely familiar about him, an enemy he had faced before.
    ‘Stop fighting!’
    The booming cry echoed through the forest. It was Gregory, running hard, coming through the woods. He leapt onto the boulder they had hidden behind earlier and extended his arms wide so that even the Tsurani in the clearing could see him.
    ‘Stop fighting! Dark Brothers are closing in!’ Gregory shouted. ‘We settle our differences later!’ Then he said something else and Dennis recognized it as Tsurani. ‘If we fight one another, we die! No honour in throwing our lives away!’
    The Tsurani warrior leading the charge slowed, then came to a halt.
    Gregory said something else and pointed back across the clearing.
    ‘Those we call the Dark Brotherhood are upon us in strength.’
    The leader turned and looked.
    Gregory’s words forced Dennis to focus his attention.
    I