Sword Play by Clayton Emery Page B

gashes such as he’d seen back beside the road. The lower end of gashes, actually, for they extended above his head higher than he could reach with his bow. “Look! We’ve got—”
    “Dorlas signals! Let’s go!”
    Like a deer breaking cover, the elf maid charged into the open, loosed an arrow at the back of a circling huntsman, then sped on toward the frantically waving dwarf. Sunbright ran after her, pausing to shoot side-on at a disk rider. He didn’t wait for the hit but kept going. Evidently he missed, for as he reached the first vine-covered rocks, an ebony flail hissed by his head, ticking the pommel of Harvester slung at his back. At the same time, Dorlas reared just in front of him, leveled a crossbow, and shot. An encouraging grunt revealed a hit. Then Sunbright was climbing, grabbing vines and thorns and tumbling into the semi-trough of a rock split by water and ice action.
    “They’ll die as good as us!” pronounced the dwarf in satisfaction. “By the Rocks of the Reaver, I knew I should have demanded more pay up front!”
    “You may get paid in full,” gasped Sunbright. He glanced around to note their surroundings. This side of the three-quarters round outcrop didn’t have any proper caves or even crevices. What they hunkered in was a simple gap shielded by a split boulder, though it was hard to tell under the dense, interlaced trees and creepers. Oddly, the sun-warmed cedars sent a thrill of nostalgia through Sunbright. It was amidst such trees that he and other children had played hide-and-seek on one of the tribe’s yearly rounds though a cedar forest to hunt pheasant. He shook that happy memory away, for today’s game was a deadlier one. The two were alone, Greenwillow having pressed on to beef up defenses elsewhere. “We might have an ally here somewhere, for there’s a cave—”
    “I knew that from the lay of the land!” The dwarf fussed with his crossbow, lining a bolt as straight as possible in its groove. “Don’t tell a rock-eater how to read rocks!”
    “I mean there’s a bear’s den somewhere nearby. Smell it? Bear shit stinks as bad as a human’s!” Sunbright tracked the hunters, who circled and circled but didn’t press. One worked to wrench Greenwillow’s arrow from his thigh armor, though whether the barb had bitten flesh or only padding wasn’t clear. Under the heavy armor, even their sex was unclear, though it appeared two of the dragon riders were women. Evidently the huntsmen awaited orders from those above. Sunbright saw one of the dragon riders tilt a wineskin and drink, and a pang of thirst stabbed him. He’d enjoy killing those bloodthirsty bastards when the time came; this was just a jaunt in the park for them.
    “I don’t smell nothing but cedar resin. And a bear can’t hurt us,” the dwarf growled, looking to his right.
    “This one might. It’s big. Gashes on the tree where it sharpened its claws stand higher than a rearing horse.”
    “Wonderful,” groused Dorlas. “Just what we need. But maybe it’s out hunting—Here they come!”
    Clapping down their visors, the dragon riders banked their metal mounts and swept in to the attack. At the same time, two of the huntsmen skittered their disks close, then abandoned them. Hopping to the rocks, the two armored men descended on Dorlas and Sunbright. As if we were rabbits, thought the barbarian, to be flushed into the open and killed by the masters.
    One hunter had a spear with a long barbed head, the other a flail, and they worked as a team. Whirling a whizzing wall of wood, one picked down the rocks and vines while the other poised, the spear ready.
    “Split!” Dorlas refused to play their way. Clambering one-handed, he scrambled like a brown spider to the left. Sunbright propped his bow—he was out of arrows—drew Harvester, and swung right.
    The Neth paused at such canny prey. In that second, Dorlas leveled his crossbow from six feet away and pulled the trigger. His eye was good. The bolt slammed