Fortress Draconis by Michael A. Stackpole

of its fellows, dumping them into the swollen vein at the bowl’s heart.
    Will fumbled with the flap of the bladestar pouch, then looked over to see a gibberer on a hillside aiming a crossbow at him. Will pulled back, tugging the reins. The bolt hit hard, yanking him from the saddle. He crashed down on the far side of the path, crushing a bush beneath him. Dust rose to choke him and he wanted to vomit.
    He was fairly certain that if he did, the bolt would be the first thing he expelled.
    Will lay there for a second, waiting for the agony sure to come from a quarrel coring him like an apple. His short life passed before his eyes, and he found pitifully little that was memorable. Only the recent events seemed worth clinging to, but they mocked him.Perhaps this is what Oracle didn’t want me to see.
    He waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. All he felt were the stings and scratches of the bush. It didn’t make any sense to him, but if he wasn’t dead yet, he was determined that Will the Nimble would do more than die.
    He rolled off the bush, letting it spring up behind him, giving him some cover, and came up into a crouch. The bolt hung leechlike from his leather surcoat. It had missed his flesh, but tangled in the excess material, pulling him off his horse’s back. Will tugged it free with his left hand and cast it aside. Then he shifted his feet, bringing his right flank back, and fingered open the bladestar pouch. One of the cool metal weapons came easily to hand.
    Will rose, and saw the gibberer who had shot at him still bent over reloading its crossbow. The thief whipped his hand forward. The poisoned metal star whirred through the air and stuck the gibberer full in the thigh.
    It looked up at him for a heartbeat, then its body convulsed and it flopped to the ground.
    Another arrow from Crow’s bow split the spine of a gibberer rushing at Resolute. The Vorquelf had dismounted and fought with a longknife in each hand. He parried one stab low with his left, then thrust through the gibberer’s throat with his right. Ripping the blade free, he spattered blood across another gibberer’s face. A lunge made the most of the temporary blindness that resulted, then a rush by three gibberers drove Resolute back.
    Will boiled into this fray. None of his training, either with Resolute or before, had formally addressed fighting. But Will’s very existence in the Dimandowns had demanded fighting—perhaps not on a daily basis, but commonly enough that he’d learned what he could and could not do. Throwing rocks, keeping the enemy at a distance, this he did best, but when forced in close, he knew there were no rules, no honor.
    The first gibberer noticed him when Will splashed into the stream, his longknife raised for a slash. The gibberer started to turn, bringing its own blade around for a cut, but Will got there first. His blade hacked open the back of the creature’s right thigh. Blood coated his knife—the stark contrast of the blade’s cold silver edged by a red ribbon exploded in his mind.
    Then something hit him hard across the shoulder blades. It pitched him forward, launching him into the air. Will’s blade went flying. The thief tucked his shoulder as he started to come down, thinking to roll to his feet, but he bumped up hard against something that stopped him. His head and shoulders on the ground, and his feet in the air, Will saw a limping gibberer start toward him.
    Worse yet, an arrow flew past the gibberer, barely nipping the tuft of hair from one of its ears.
    Will twisted around and came down on his knees. He grabbed a stone with his right hand and threw it at the gibberer. The beast cackled as it batted the rock aside with an open paw. Will shuffled back, in the shadow of the corpse that had stopped his roll and pitched another stone at the gibberer.
    The Aurolani creature slapped that missile out of the air, giggling hideously as Will retreated again. It waved its longknife at him, then jabbed the air twice,