Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

Chapter 6: Buckler and Shield

Kora quickly took the lead, guiding the battered pit team through the maze of hallways towards where she thought a way out could be.  And they so desperately needed one, with two members of their team now bleeding to death, Joran from his arrow wounds and Tev from getting crushed in the transformed Hestefan's Drax jaws.  But as they staggered from one darkened hallway into the next, barely managing to avoid the rush of guards that were pouring into the underground hallways, she began to realize that they were hopelessly lost.

"Burn me, Geras, where are you when I need you?" she muttered in exasperation as she rounded yet another corner to find herself looking at a blank wall.  A glance back at a bleeding Tev in Feral'Sath's arms, and an unconscious Joran slumped over Lax's shoulder reminded her of their desperate situation.  Swallowing hard, the Ajanti backtracked and turned down another hallway, keeping her small group tight to the shadows.

As they slunk along, ducking every time they heard a group of soldiers run by overhead, Kora found herself regretting that they hadn't dragged that weasel Valus along with them.  The skinny, foppish Mardish didn't have an honest bone in his scheming body.  But he might have known a quick way out of the complex, being the emperor's pit master and all.  Considering how much of Tev's blood they were leaving on the floor of each hallway they traversed, finding the way out was becoming exponentially more important with each passing second.

Kora glanced back again as they began moving around yet another darkened corner, her heart pounding.  If she couldn't guide her little band out of danger, . . .

"You there!" a hard voice snarled and Kora's head snapped back around to face front even as her clenched fist snapped up to bring Lax and Feral'Sath to a halt.  And immediately Kora felt a chill travel through her when she found herself looking at a tight knot of soldiers dressed in full leather armor.  The Mardish were also brandishing heavy spears and swords as they slowly advanced.

"You are escaping slaves, aren't you," the leader, a sergeant with bars of rank on his sleeve, growled as he stepped out between the ranks of his men to reveal himself as a hard faced male Mardish with spidering battle scars marking his face.  He crossed his arms in front of him, halting the advance of his soldiers behind him as he came to an arrogant halt.

"And as such, you are automatically sentenced to death by law."  He half turned to command over his shoulder.

"Take them."

Kora braced, her hand falling on her weapon.  They hadn't come this far to let themselves fall back into their captors' hands!  But before any of the Mardish soldiers could move, a strange mist appeared without warning, curling around the soldiers to almost instantly and completely engulf them in the space of only a couple heart beats.  It was thick stuff, grey and concealing as it filled the hallway space on either side of the soldiers as well.

"What is this?" the sergeant demanded, drawing his sword with a hard pull before looking about at the thick stuff that continued to build around him and his command.  For her part, Kora froze in place, watching with baited breath to see what would happen next.

"Some sort of magic?" The sergeant waved aside enough of the mist to catch sight of Kora, who was now partially hidden by the billowing stuff.  "Ajanti!  Answer me!  Are you using magic on me, slave??"

"No, she isn't." a voice answered from somewhere behind the soldiers, soft yet piercing, cutting through the thickening mists to penetrate everyone's ears like spears of sound.

"I am."

With a flare of light, a tendril of energy licked out of the mist to slam into the sergeant's back.  It picked him up and remarkably twisted in space to slam him into the wall beside him, crushing his body into so many broken bones and torn skin.  Shouting in alarm, the rest of the soldiers began to scatter, some running towards the voice with raised weapons, others towards Kora and her team.