Read Online Once A Hero by Michael A. Stackpole - Free Book Online

of a lunge, but fighting cavalry from foot meant the finer points of dueling were denied me in any event.
    The Haladin horsemen had descended on my men thicker than wing-maggots on meat. I had been traveling with a small, handpicked squad that included a number of my officers. Though they were battle-hardened veterans all, being caught in an ambush still presented problems. Nighttime and fatigue likewise contributed to the confusion that greeted me at the top of the hill.
    The ambush, which any leader would have seen as a nightmare, split the night with the ringing of steel on steel and the cries and shouts of men angry, desperate, and dying. Horses screamed and hooves pounded the ground, sending tremors up through the bottoms of my feet. The swirling martial maelstrom made it impossible for me to judge which side was getting the better of the other.
    At my whistle Aarundel had immediately assumed command of the Pack. There were those who, mindful of the Eldsaga, would have mistrusted an Elf, but not my warriors. They'd too many times seen him as I did now, giving his Dwarf-made war ax a twist and jerk to free it from a Haladin corpse. Looking at him, none of us doubted the truth of the Eldsaga, and all were glad he fought with us rather than against us.
    Being stupid enough to fall to an ambush infuriated me, and I wanted to vent my anger on the Haladina. I howled out my war cry and settled both hands around the scimitar's hilt. The wolfish call brought a Haladina around, and he drove at me. With his scimitar pulled back for a running-slash, he'd already figured where he'd weave my hair into his scalp-coat.
    I raised the scimitar to my high left guard and blocked the slash all but hilt to hilt. The stout blow sent a shiver through my arms, but the blade stayed locked in my grip. Turning toward him as he rode past, I cut down with the scimitar. He had already begun to pull his arm back for another slash, so had no way to parry when I chopped into and through his knee.
    I ducked beneath his weak return slash while his scream drowned out all but the last of Aarundel's shouted warning. I looked up to see another Haladina bearing down on me. He had a lance centered on my chest. Off balance as I was, I could have barely managed a weak parry, and my mail wouldn't stop a horse-lance.
    From my right, moving like a scrap of shadow given life by a nightmare godling, the Dreel crossed from forest to horseman in an eye blink. A humanoid mountain of muscle and fury, Shijef hit the gelding on its shoulder with one paw, and its haunch with the other. The Dreel's charge lifted the horse from its hooves, and still driving his legs, Shijef slammed rider and beast into a thick pine on the road's far side.
    Bones broke and metal groaned. A quick slash with the left paw's talons opened the horse's neck, ending its screams and almost severing the head. The rider likewise screamed, though more from terror than pain, and earned the Dreel's quick attention. Shijef reached up and closed his right paw over the raider's head. I turned away before he could do it, but Shijef took great delight in discarding the Haladin head so it bounced across my line of sight.
    The rest of the band, made up of all my captains save Drogo, and two each of their own company's men, fed the forest blood, bone, and meat. It worked out to be not so much a battle as a slaughter, given that the ambush was not that much of a surprise and that the forest eliminated the Haladina ability to ride fast and make quick attacks. With our superior armor and heavier weapons, a close-in fight left them nearer to us, and to the goddess the Reithrese revered, than they had wanted.
    After they broke and the half dozen that escaped us rode away, it also appeared that these Haladina had been hiding in the hills since before the Haladin defeat on the Central Plains. Aarundel and Senan found their camp back up in the hills and reported they had nothing in the way of supplies. The Elf suggested and